
Class _Ej2Ji 
Book._iIMj 



Got)yriglitl^'"_A5v2^- 



COFlfRIGHT DEPOSm 



LIPPINCOTT'S CLASSICS 

EDITED BY EDWIN L. MILLER. A.M. 

PRINCIPAL OF THE NORTHWESTERN HIGH SCHOOL, DETROIT, MICH. 



BURKE'S SPEECH 
ON CONCILIATION 
WITH AMERICA 

EDITED WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTIONS 
BY 

EDWIN L. MILLER, A.M. 



^-■/ 




PHILADELPHIA y LONDON 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 






COPYRIGHT. 1920, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



OCT -2 1320 



PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS 






I admire his eloquence, I approve his poli- 
tics, I adore his chivalry. — Gibbon. 

I think him the greatest man upon the 
earth. — Dr. Parr. 

In amplitude of comprehension and richness 

of imagination superior to every orator, 

ancient or modern. — Macaulay. 

The greatest philosopher in practice whom 
the world ever saw. — Sir James Mackintosh. 



PREFACE 

Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America has been 
selected as Volume I of Lippincott's School Classics for 
two reasons. First, it is fitting that he be remembered and 
appreciated in the hour when, after a lapse of 142 years, 
England and America are once more united " by ties which, 
though light as air, are as strong as links of iron." Second, 
he is of all writers the most timely at a moment when too 
many people are being seduced into believing that liberty 
can exist without law and happiness without order. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Life of Burke 1 1 

Suggestions to Teachers 29 

Chronological Table 34 

Bibliography 37 

Questions for Review 39 

Speech on -Conciliation with America 41 

Notes and Queries ^109 



EDMUND BURKE 



1729-1797 

Edmund Burke is almost as worthy of the study of 
Americans as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. 
His life was a model of adherence to principle. As a student 
of the ideas on which our constitution rests he has had no 
peer. His prose is perhaps as artistic and powerful as can 
be found in any language. Throughout his life he was a 
consistent and undaunted advocate of law, order, and liberty. 
At the beginning of our revolutionary war he proposed 
measures which might, if adopted, have prevented the politi- 
cal separation of the colonies from the mother country. These 
principles, since written into the laws of Canada, Australia, 
New Zealand, and South Africa, have at all events given to 
the British Empire a spirit of unified loyalty which has suc- 
cessfully resisted the ambition of the Hohenzollerns. Among 
the intellectual and moral forces which will preserve it against 
the far more dangerous ambitions of aspiring demagogues, 
not the least powerful is Burke's sane advocacy of liberty 
secured by adequate restraints against the lawlessness of 
rich and poor alike. He hated both the tyranny of kings 
and the tyranny of mobs. To-day his writings constitute not 
only the best of all introductions to the study of republican 
government but the best of all antidotes against the tendency 
of the under-educated and the over-educated to revert to the 
morals and the practices of the stone age. 

He was born in Dublin January i, 1730, O. S. His 
father, Richard Burke, was an attorney and a Protestant; 
his mother was a Catholic. Of Edmund's early years little 
is known except that, while his brothers and sisters, of whom 

II 



Edmund Burke 

there were fifteen, were at play, he was always at work. In 
1 741 he v/as sent to an academy kept at Ballitore by a 
learned and honest Quaker named Abraham Shackleton. 
Shackleton taught him to hate oppression and instilled into 
him a passion for civil and religious liberty. He did not 
need to teach him books, for Edmund made the reading of 
the classics his diversion rather than his business. Augustine 
Birrell says that Shackleton was also responsible for Burke's 
acquisition of an Irish brogue which lasted as long as Burke 
himself, but, as Shackleton was an Englishman from York- 
shire, the credit for this accomplishment probably belongs 
elsewhere. At all events, the master won the pupil's lifelong 
love and respect, a feat of which any teacher might be proud. 
From Ballitore Burke went in 1744 to Trinity College, 
Dublin. His tutor within a month set him at work reading 
Burgersdicius, the six last Aeneids, Enchiridion, and Tabula 
Cebetus, all of which interfered considerably with his real 
-.cudies. Burke himself worried a good deal because his 
interests were so varied that he was afraid he could master 
nothing. He also found it harder to study in town than in 
the country; the townsman, he said, is beset on every side. 
In spite of these difficulties he passed in May, 1 746, a severe 
examination of two days in all the Greek and Roman authors 
of note and was consequently elected to a scholarship which 
gave him his board free, fifty shillings a year in the college 
cellar, the right to vote for members of Parliament, the rent 
of his rooms, his college dues, and upon graduation a chance 
for fifteen pounds a year more. His favorite studies at this 
time were Greek, Latin, philosophy, general literature, and 
metaphysics. He even read a few novels. Bacon's Essays, 
Shakespeare, and Addison were, however, his chief compan- 
ions in his hours of relaxation. Demosthenes' orations, Plu- 
tarch's Lives, the plays of Euripides and Sophocles, Xeno- 
phon's Anabasis, and the poems of Horace and Virgil also 
won and kept his admiration. He joined a debating club, 
where these subjects among others were discussed: 

12 



Edmund Burke 

(a) The sailors in a ship turning pirates (Dennis for, 

Burke against). 

(b) Catiline to the Allobroges. 

Of all his studies, however, perhaps that which had the 
most direct and lasting influence on his style as an orator 
was that of Milton's prose and poetry. His admiration of 
Milton led him to write poetr>^, which was not in Milton's 
style, but in that of Pope, and was neither better nor worse 
than that of dozens of other gifted youths. Its quality may 
be inferred from one couplet: 

Jove claim'd the verse old Homer sung, 
But God himself inspired Young. 

He himself compared his poetic enthusiasm to the itch and 
e^/idently did not allow it to interfere with his studies, for he 
took his A. B. 1748, and his A. M. 1751. 

Before receiving the latter degre^ he had already begun 
his residence in the Middle Temple, London, as a law student. 
English architecture, English agriculture, and Englishmen 
at once impressed him favorably, the first two because of their 
superiority to Irish, the last because they perform more than 
they promise. He studied law hard, but enjoyed himself, 
too, in a variety of profitable ways, falling in love, like the 
sensible Irishman he was, with Peg Woffington; rambling 
about England during his vacations, putting up at quaint old 
inns with motherly landladies, who mistook him for an 
author until they discovered that he always paid his bills and 
never got drunk; attending debating clubs; and gradually 
getting acquainted with a circle of great men — David Gar- 
rick, the first actor of his day; Sir Joshua Reynolds, the 
first painter; Oliver Goldsmith, the greatest writer; and 
Dr. Samuel Johnson, the author of the first real dictionary 
of the English language and one of the most brilliant con- 
versationalists in all history. He was everlastingly interested 
in everything from agriculture to abbeys. His letters to 
Arthur Young on the former, says Birrell, still tremble 

13 



Edmund Burke 

with emotion. Of the latter he wrote to a friend: " I have" 
not the least doubt that the finest poem in the English lan- 
guage, I mean Milton's ' II Penseroso/ was composed in the 
long-resounding aisle of a mouldering cloister or ivy'd abbey. 
Yet after all do you know that I would rather sleep in the 
southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the 
tomb of the Capulets." 

Five years went by in this fashion and the elder Burke, 
we may fancy, was beginning to wonder if Edmund was ever 
going to amount to anything. The answer came in 1756, 
when there appeared under his name an octavo pamphlet of 
106 pages called a " Vindication of Natural Society.'* This 
was an ironical defense of the doctrines of Bolshevism written 
a century before the birth of Trotzky and Lenine. It is an 
almost perfect imitation of the style of Lord Bolingbroke, 
who had previously written a " Vindication of Natural Relig- 
ion," in which he had attacked Christianity. Burke sought 
to show that, if Bolingbroke's arguments against revealed 
religion were sound, they were equally sound with respect 
to all the institutions of civilized men. It is worth remem- 
bering that Burke thus, at the beginning of his public career, 
made a brilliant attack upon the monstrous doctrine which 
to-day threatens with annihilation the civilization of Europe. 

A few months later he followed this performance with 
an even more celebrated work entitled "A Philosophical 
Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and 
Beautiful." Unlike the " Vindication," the " Sublime and 
Beautiful" is strictly original both in style and matter. 
Burke had toiled upon it for seven years. It was toil well 
spent. His ideas won both public and private approval. 
Critics agreed that he had laid afresh the foundations of 
literary criticism, and from his father there came a check for 
one hundred pounds, conduct which, under the circumstances, 
says Birrell, was both sublime and beautiful. 

Exhausted by these labors, Burke took refuge in the home 
of Dr. Christopher Nugent, who resided with his daughter 

14 



Edmund Burke 

Mary Jane at Bath. The result was that he regained his 
health and lost his heart. Doctor Nugent was a Catholic but 
his wife and daughter were Presbyterians. Consequently, 
when Burke married Mary Jane, though both of them were 
Protestants, each had a Catholic parent. Their union was 
very happy. " Every care vanishes the moment I enter 
under my own roof," he said. Here let us leave them, in 
Birrell's words, where man and wife ought to be left, alone. 

Marriage drove Burke back to his pen. In 1757 he pub- 
lished in two volumes " An Account of the European Settle- 
ments in America," which ran through seven editions and 
shows, if it shows nothing else, that even then Burke had 
made himself familiar with the subject he was to treat with 
such lofty genius seventeen years later. In 1758 Dodsley, 
the publisher, employed Burke to edit a year-book called 
" The Annual Re^ster," which had two distinct advantages. 
It added one hundred pounds a year to Burke's income, and 
it forced him to become familiar with current politics. 

By this time Burke's growing reputation had attracted 
the attention of two remarkable but very different men. 
Both appreciated his talents. One of them was Dr. Samuel 
Johnson. The other was Gerard Hamilton. 

On Christmas day, 1758, Arthur Murphy dined at the 
table of David Garrick and received the surprise of his life. 
Doctor Johnson was contradicted by a man twenty years his 
junior, and submitted to it. The subject was India and the 
young man was Edmund Burke. Indeed, no great man ever 
praised another more highly than Johnson praised Burke. 
On one occasion, when he was ill, he said of Burke's conver- 
sation: "That fellow calls forth all my powers. Were I 
to see Burke now, it would kill me." On another he said: 
" No man of sense could meet Mr. Burke by accident under 
a gateway to avoid a shower without being convinced he was 
the first man in England." 

Gerard Hamilton was a man of a different type. In 1 755 
he had made in Parliament a speech of such brilliance that 

15 



Edmund Burke 

he was appointed in 1756 a Lord of Trade and never after- 
ward ventured to open his mouth in public. From this cir- 
cumstance he acquired the nickname of Single-speech Hamil- 
ton. If, however, he was unwilling to give his country his 
advice, he did not hesitate to take its money. Being appointed 
to a lucrative sinecure in Ireland in 1761, he asked Burke, 
of whose intellectual powers he evidently had a keen appre- 
ciation, to become his secretary. Burke accepted and for two 
years served his master so well that he obtained for his aide 
a pension of 300 pounds a year. Hamilton entertained the 
idea that he could thus make Burke his bondman for life, but 
when Burke discovered his employer's purpose he repudiated 
both Hamilton and the pension. His letters at this time 
flame with indignation. In one of them he calls Hamilton 
a sullen, vain, proud, selfish, canker-hearted, envious reptile. 
Augustine Birrell says of these outbursts that he thanks 
Burke for permitting him, after the lapse of one hundred and 
thirty years, to warm his hands at this righteous wrath. 

With the Hamilton episode Burke passed from private 
to public life. He speedily obtained the position of secretary 
to the Marquis of Rockingham, who was then the head of 
the Whig party. Though amiable and honorable, the Mar- 
quis was neither energetic nor great, but he won Burke's 
lasting esteem. He also paid his debts, which were neither 
few nor small. In return Burke became almost immediately 
the real leader of the Whig party by virtue of his knowledge, 
his judgment, and his energy. In order to understand the 
importance of the services which Burke thus rendered to 
mankind, it is necessary to get firmly in mind the political 
situation when, in 1765, he entered Rockingham's service. 

In 1 7 14 the throne of England had fallen to a German 
prince of the House of Hanover. This monarch reigned as 
George I until 1728. His successor, George II, died 1760. 
Both were content to be figureheads. But George III, who 
ascended the throne 1760, had a Prussian soul, thought 
Shakespeare sad stuff, and possessed female relatives. One 

16 



Edmund Burke 

of these had advised him to be king in reality as well as in 
name. As the age of Nero was past and that of Wilhelm II 
not yet arrived it did not appear advisable to his majesty to 

TTJ° ^IT It ""^ ^^ decapitating his own subjLts 
or shootmg the children and wives of his neighbors. He 
therefore chose the more humane and effective method of 
tabeiy and actually succeeded during a period of rather 

mZ Thl'^l'^Tl lu'^ " '° corrupting the House of Com- 
mons tha Enghsh hberty was little more than a hollow show. 
Histonca ly the most famous of his attempts to carry out his 
•purpose .s found in those attacks he made on Amer can 
hberty which culminated in the American Revolution Burlce 
soon perceived, and perhaps was the first Englishman to do 

ft', f M^-^'^"^' P.""^"'^ °^ ^^^ ^"S' and he dearly set 
Dkrnnfl ^'f PfJ^P^f .^"titled " Thoughts on the Present 
Discontents," published in 1770. 

When this pamphlet appeared Burke had already sat 
five years in Parliament as Member from Wendover. His 
election had occurred just a few weeks after George Gren- 
ville who was then Prime Minister, at the behest of his royal 
master, had caused Parliament to pass an act requiring that 

albX'ff ,•'"!!!'• "1 ^'"^' °^ P^P^^'y' ^" bonds, and 
all bills of sale issued m America must be written on stamped 

government paper costing from one cent to fifty dollars in 
order to be legal. This act, known as the Stamp Act, was 
m effect a violation of the fundamental prmciple of the British 
constitution. It was a violation of the principle that there 
must be no taxation without representation. 

In America it aroused intense indignation. Stamps were 
rfpX \ ? u""^ ^' ^^^^ "^'t' newspapers issued with a 
7^hJ "^^ '^ ^.*'™P *°"'^ ^^^^ '^^e"' and a boycott 

Hent in fh!f V- S°°.''^ ^"^''"factured in England. Patrick 
Henty m the Virg.ma House of Burgesses said: " Cssar had 

irJT^ ^^^'^'' } ^' ^'''"''*"' »"d George HI may 
profit by their example." A congress in which nine coloni^ 
were represented met at New York and adopted resolutions 



^ 17 



Edmund Burke 

declaring that the colonists were entitled to all the rights 
of Englishmen; that, like other Englishmen, they should be 
taxed only by their own representatives; and that, as those 
representatives could not sit in Parliament, it was unconstitu- 
tional for the colonists to have their money given to the king 
by any but their own legislatures. 

These declarations probably made no great impression 
on anybody in England except Edmund Burke, who was not 
an Englishman, but the refusal of the colonists to buy English 
goods was easily understood even by George Ill's hired 
Parliament, and they accordingly made haste to repeal the 
Stamp Act, to the great satisfaction of everybody in America. 
Two years later, however, Charles Townshend spoiled all this 
good feeling by putting through Parliament a measure which 
placed duties on tea, paints, paper, glass, and lead imported 
into America, and provided that governors and judges 
in America should be paid from the revenue thus col- 
lected, the purpose being to free them from the control of 
their constituents. 

Instantly the colonies were again in turmoil. Led by 
Samuel Adams, of Boston, the colonists agreed to eat nothing, 
drink nothing, wear nothing coming from England until the 
duties were removed. The king threatened in retaliation to 
abrogate the right of trial by jury by removing to England 
for trial persons accused of treason. He sent soldiers to 
Boston. The citizens insulted them by calling them lobsters. 
In return the redcoats fired into a mob, killing five and 
wounding six. Throughout the colonies Committees of Corre- 
spondence were organized for the purpose of defying the 
tyranny of the king. The effect on British trade was so 
serious that in 1770 all of the Townshend duties were removed 
except that on tea. 

The tea tax was small, but the principle involved was 
great. To test the sincerity of the Americans, it was arranged 
that the East India Company should ship tea to the colonists 
at a price so low that, even with the duty added, it should 

18 



Edmund Burke 

be cheaper than ever before. The experiment failed. At 
Charlestown and Philadelphia shiploads of tea were seized 
or sent back to England. In Boston, peaceful means having 
failed, a band of men disguised as Indians threw overboard 
$90,000 worth of tea. In retaliation Parliament passed five 
acts. One remodeled the charter of Massachusetts. An- 
other closed the port of Boston. A third provided for the 
trial in England of British soldiers who committed crimes in 
America. A fourth compelled the colonists to lodge and feed 
the soldiers sent to punish them. A fifth gave to Quebec 
certain western lands belonging to Virginia, New York, Con- 
necticut, and Massachusetts. To enforce these acts the king 
sent General Gage to Boston, where he speedily found him- 
self in a state of siege. Massachusetts carpenters would 
not work for him, he could buy nothing from Massachu- 
setts farmers, and all of his supplies had to be brought 
from England. 

These measures united America. In Virginia, Patrick 
Henry said: " We must fight." George Washington offered 
to equip a thousand men at his own expense. In September, 
1774, the first Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, and 
drew up a Declaration asserting the right of Americans to 
life, liberty, property, representation on taxing bodies, and 
the privilege of petitioning for a redress of grievances. Of 
this body William Pitt said: " For solidity of reasoning, force 
of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion no nation or body 
of men can stand in preference to the General Congress 
at Philadelphia." 

Burke had entered the fight on behalf of America with 
a speech against the Stamp Act which he delivered in the 
House of Commons January 14, 1766. So powerful was this 
effort that Mr. Pitt told the House that Mr. Burke had left 
nothing for him to say. Doctor Johnson wrote to Bennet 
Langton that probably no man had ever gained such a reputa- 
tion by his first appearance, and General Lee told the Prince 
of Poland: " An Irishman, Mr. Burke, is sprung up in the 

19 



Edmund Burke 

House of Commons who has astonished everybody with the 
power of his eloquence and his comprehensive knowledge 
of all our exterior and internal politics and commercial inter- 
ests. He wants nothing but that sort of dignity annexed to 
rank and property in England to make him the most consider- 
able man in the Lower House." 

During the nine years which followed Burke tried in 
various ways to overcome this handicap. He bought a coun- 
try estate. He ran in debt. He raised carrots. It was all 
in vain. He won a great and lasting reputation, it is true, 
but he could not break into the charmed circle of the British 
aristocracy. As he himself said: " I was not swaddled, 
rocked, and dandled into a legislator. Nit or in adversum (I 
struggle against opposition) is the motto for a man like me." 
Through it all, however, he kept his honor unsullied, and he 
never wavered in his fight against the king for the principles 
of British and hence American freedom. 

In 1 771 he received as a reward the position of colony 
agent for New York at 700 pounds a year. In 1774, on a 
motion of Mr. Rose Fuller to repeal the tea duty, he made a 
speech which drew from Lord John Townshend the exclama- 
tion: " Good God! What a man this is! How could he 
acquire such transcendent powers? " Then, on March 22, 
1775, he delivered what is probably the greatest speech ever-t 
made in the English language in structure, in eloquence, in A 
imaginative power, in its masterly analysis of the American ^ 
character, and in the consummate statesmanship of its funda- 
mental theme. The Constitution is the foundation of our 
laws; Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America is the 
foundation, in a way, of all the free constitutions in the world. 
Of it Charles James Fox said twenty years later: " Let gen- 
tlemen read this speech by day and meditate on it by night ; 
let them peruse it again and again, study it, imprint it on 
their minds, impress it upon their hearts — they would there 
learn that representation was the sovereign remedy for 
every evil." 

20 



Edmund Burke 

Upon the thick skulls of George Ill's hired Parliament, 
however, Burke's eloquence was wasted. His propositions 
were rejected by a great majority. Within a month the battles 
of Lexington and Concord had been fought. As the struggle 
progressed Burke was the prey of mingled emotions. He 
did not wish America to win, for in American success he saw 
the ruin of the British empire; he did not wish George III to 
win, for in a victory for the king he saw the ruin of 
British liberty. In 1777 he elucidated his views on the 
war in one of his best pamphlets, a Letter to the Sheriffs 
of Bristol, of which he was at that time the representa- 
tive. Doctor Robertson, the Scotch historian, sent him a 
present of his History of America, in return for which Burke 
gave him a copy of this letter, apologizing because he could 
offer only an ephemeral leaflet in return for an immortal work. 
As usually happens when a Scotchman makes a trade with 
an Irishman, Burke, says Augustine Birrell, on this occasion, 
gave more than he got. He spoke so eloquently against 
the employment of Indians by the British in the war that, 
according to one observer. Lord North would have been torn 
to pieces by the mob had the mob heard Burke's speech. 
In 1780 he lost his seat for Bristol because he advocated 
free trade between England and Ireland. Cornwallis sur- 
rendered October 17, 1781; on November 27, Burke made 
a famous speech on the principles of Lord North. Among 
other things he said: " Mr. Speaker, are we yet to be told 
of the rights for which we went to war? Oh, excellent rights! 
Oh, valuable rights! that have cost Great Britain thirteen 
provinces, four islands, a hundred thousand men, and more 
than seventy millions of money! . . . Oh, says a silly 
man, full of his prerogative of dominion over a few beasts 
of the field, there is excellent wool on the back of a wolf and 
therefore he must be sheared. What! shear a wolf? Yes. 
But will he comply? Have you considered the trouble? 
How will you get this wool? Oh, I have considered nothing, 
and I will consider nothing but my right; a wolf is an animal 

21 



Edmund Burke 

that has wool; all animals that have wool are to be sheared; 
and therefore I will shear the wolf." 

The surrender of Cornwallis forced North to resign and 
brought Burke's party into power. Instead of being made 
Prime Minister, however, Burke was not even included in the 
Cabinet. Why a man of his commanding genius was thus 
ignored has been ever since a source of wonder. It was 
probably due to the abundance of his private enemies, to his 
high principles, to his Irish brogue, to the fact that he was 
always in debt, and to the quickness of his temper. He was 
given, however, the most lucrative post in England, that of 
Paymaster of the Forces, and proceeded at once to reform it 
into one of the least. Previous paymasters had pocketed the 
interest on the public money which they held. Burke diverted 
this to the coffers of the state and thus reduced his own pay 
from 25,300 to 4000 pounds a year. 

Burke's public life has been said to fall into three divi- 
sions. The first of these, which has already been described, 
dealt with America; the second with the Empire of the 
British in India; and the third with the French Revolution. 

The student who wishes to gain a vivid idea of the foun- 
dation of the British Empire in India will do well to read 
Macaulay's essays on Clive and Hastings. In 1785 the latter 
had been for some time viceroy of India. In order to send 
dividends to his employers, the East India Company, he had 
been guilty of extorting money from the natives. Burke, 
to whom injustice in India was the same as injustice in 
England and who probably knew more about India than any- 
body else, opened up the subject by a speech on the debts of 
the Nabob of Arcot. It is a masterpiece of invective. The 
impeachment of Hastings by the House of Commons soon 
followed. Macaulay's description of the opening scene is one 
of the finest passages in our historical literature. In part 
it is as follows: 

" The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the 
great hall of William Rufus, the hall which had re- 

22 



Edmund Burke 

sounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty 
kings, the hall which had witnessed the just sentence 
of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers, the hall 
where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed 
and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resent- 
ment, the hall where Charles had confronted the High 
Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half 
redeemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp 
was wanting. The avenues were lined with grenadiers. 
The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed 
in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds 
under Garter King-at-arms. The judges in their vest- 
ments of state attended to give advice on points of law. 
The gray old walls were hung with scarlet. The long 
galleries were crowded by an audience such as has 
rarely excited the fears or the emulation of an orator. 
There were gathered together, from all parts of a great, 
free, enlightened, and prosperous empire, grace and 
female loveHness, wit and learning, the representatives 
of every science and of every art. There were seated 
round the Queen the fair-haired young daughters of the 
House of Brunswick. There the ambassadors of great 
kings and commonwealths gazed with admiration on a 
spectacle which no other country in the world could 
present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic 
beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all 
the imitations of the stage. There the historian of the 
Roman Empire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded 
the cause of Sicily against Verres, and when, before a 
senate which still retained some show of freedom, 
Tacitus thundered against the oppressor of Africa. 
There were seen, side by side, the greatest painter and 
the greatest scholar of the age. The spectacle had 
allured Reynolds from that easel which has preserved 
to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and 
statesmen and the sweet smiles of so many noble matrons. 

2Z 



Edmund Burke 

It had induced Parr to suspend his labors in that dark 
and profound mine from which he had extracted a vast 
treasure of erudition — a treasure too often buried in the 
earth, too often paraded with injudicious and inelegant 
ostentation, but still precious, massive, and splendid. 

*' The sergeants made proclamation. Hastings ad- 
vanced to the bar, and bent his knee. The culprit was 
indeed not unworthy of that great presence. He had 
ruled an extensive and populous country, had made 
laws and treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up 
and pulled down princes. And in his high place he had 
so borne himself that all had feared him, that most had 
loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no 
title to glory except virtue. He looked like a great 
man, and not like a bad man. His counsel accompanied 
him, men all of whom were afterwards raised by their 
talents and learning to the highest posts in their pro- 
fession. But neither the culprit nor his advocates 
attracted so much notice as the accusers. There were 
Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes and the 
English Hyperides. There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, 
or negligent, of the art of adapting his reasonings and 
his style to the capacity and taste of his hearers, but 
in amplitude of comprehension and richness of imagina- 
tion superior to every orator, ancient or modern. 

" The charges and the answers of Hastings were first 
read. The ceremony occupied two whole days. On 
the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied 
by his opening speech, which was intended to be a 
general introduction to all the charges. With an exu- 
berance of thought and a splendor of diction which 
more than satisfied the highly raised expectation of the 
audience, he described the character and institutions 
of the natives of India, recounted the circumstances in 
which the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated, and 
set forth the constitution of the Company and of the 

24 



Edmund Burke 

English presidencies. Having thus attempted to com- 
municate to his hearers an idea of Eastern society as 
vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he pro- 
ceeded to arraign the administration of Hastings as sys- 
tematically conducted in defiance of morality and public 
law. The energy and pathos of the great orator ex- 
torted expressions of unwonted admiration from the 
stern and hostile Chancellor, and, for a moment, seemed 
to pierce even the resolute heart of the defendant. The 
ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to such displays 
of eloquence, excited by the solemnity of the occasion, 
and perhaps not unwilling to display their taste and sen- 
sibility, were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. 
Handkercfiiefs were pulled out; smelling-bottles were 
handed round; hysterical sobs and screams were heard; 
and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in a fit. At length 
the orator concluded. Raising his voice till the old 
arches of Irish oak resounded, ' Therefore,' said he, 
* hath it with all confidence been ordered by the 
Commons of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren 
Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach 
him in the name of the Commons' House of Parlia- 
ment, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in 
the name of the English nation, whose ancient honor 
he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people 
of India, whose rights he has trodden underfoot, and 
whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in 
the name of human nature itself, in the name of both 
sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every 
rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor 
of all. 

The trial thus begun lasted for fourteen years and ended 
in the acquittal of the defendant. Those years of labor, 
however, were not wasted. The fruit of Burke's efforts has 
been a century and a quarter of better government for a 
nation of two hundred and fifty millions of people. 

25 



Edmund Burke 

In the meantime revolution had, in 1789, broken out in 
France. Orderly at first, as in Russia under Kerensky, it 
gradually degenerated into a reign of terror not wholly 
unlike the state of affairs under Trotzsky and Lenine. 
Burke saw in it not a defense of liberty safeguarded by 
law but an attack upon law by all the powers of anarchy. 
Some of Burke's critics have accused him of inconsistency 
because, while he supported the Americans in their resistance 
to tyranny, he denounced the French. In reality he was 
thoroughly consistent. In upholding the Americans he was 
defending the ancient British principle, " No taxation 
without representation." In opposing the French he was 
defending established government against anarchy. As a 
matter of fact Burke was the High Priest, as somebody has 
called him, of Law and Order. In his opinion, says one of 
his critics, the mountains of prejudice and the rivers of cus- 
tom are necessary to protect such civilization as the human 
race has been able to attain. He thought, and the years 
19 14-19 19 have proved that only a thin crust of law and 
custom protects mankind against the lava of anarchy. 

Accordingly in 1790 he published his "Reflections on 
the French Revolution." The book found a responsive 
chord in the hearts of the English public. Almost overnight 
it converted its author from the most unpopular into the 
most popular man in the country. It speedily ran through 
fourteen editions. It must have sounded to his contem- 
poraries like a prophet's word. In it he foretold bloodshed, 
anarchy, and the downfall of the French republic. Three 
years after its appearance came the reign of terror and nine 
years after the foundation of the empire of Napoleon. To 
us the book is important because in it Burke, instead of trying 
to upset existing institutions, employs his sagacity to discover 
the why and wherefore of their existence. When the funda- 
mental principles of social order are questioned and the 
foundations of society seen to be crumbling underneath our 
feet, these teachings of his are peculiarly valuable. 

26 



Edmund Burke 

It is not to be supposed, however, that his views on the 
French Revolution were philosophically correct. He was 
perhaps too close to it to understand its nature. It was 
really nothing but the revolt of a noble, civilized, and 
intelligent race against centuries of intolerable oppression. 
Even the reign of terror caused only four thousand deaths, 
about one two-hundredth as many as resulted from the 
Seven Years' War and an inconsiderable number in com- 
parison with the ten millions or so who perished to satisfy 
Hohenzollern ambition 1914-1918. Thomas Paine asked 
pointedly, having reference to Burke's lamentations for the 
fate of Marie Antoinette, if men were to weep over the 
plumage and forget the dying bird, meaning that the fate 
of the French aristocracy mattered little while the people 
were starving. Burke quarreled with Fox over the French 
Revolution and Fox said that it was lucky for Burke that 
he took the royal side, because his violence would certainly 
have got him hanged if he had taken the other. 

Burke died 1797 and was buried according to his own 
wish near his country home at Beaconsfield, although Fox 
generously proposed in Parliament that he be interred in 
Westminster Abbey. 

In person Burke was about five feet ten inches tall, an 
expert athlete when young, and entirely free from what he 
called " that master vice. Sloth." There are good portraits 
of him by Reynolds, Rommey, and Barry. His manners 
were based on principles that deserve imitation. " Never," 
he said, " permit yourself to be outdone in courtesy by your 
inferiors." Censoriousness, in his opinion, is allied to none of 
the virtues. He had no personal vices; Doctor Parr speaks 
of his unspotted innocence, his firm integrity; and Bishop 
O'Beirne said: " If there be an obscure point in the life 
or conduct of Edmund Burke, the moment the explanation 
arrives it will be found to redound to his honour." He had 
no taste for pursuits that kill time. Of his oratory perhaps 
the most striking characteristic was originality. When 

27 



Edmund Burke 

Johnson was asked if Burke resembled Cicero, he replied: 
" No, Sir. He resembles Edmund Burke." Possibly the 
best, certainly the most famous, sketch of his character is, 
however, from the pen of Goldsmith: 

Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such 
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much, 
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind. 
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. 
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat 
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote ; 
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, 
And thought of convincing while they thought of dining; 
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit; 
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit ; 
For a patriot too cool, for a drudge disobedient, 
And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient. 
In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed or in place, Sir, 
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor. 



SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 

Perhaps the following method of studying Burke's Speech 
on Conciliation may prove to be of some assistance to teachers 
who have not already worked out a scheme of their own. 

1. First of all a student should make himself familiar 
with Burke's life. 

2. He should get in mind the main points of the British 
constitution. 

3. He should make himself familiar with the events 
between 1 760 and 1 774 that led to the break between America 
and the mother country. 

4. He should read Burke's Speech through from beginning 
to end rapidly, his object being simply to get a bird's eye 
view of the whole speech. 

5. He should read it again somewhat more carefully for 
the purpose of analyzing its structure. In doing this, he 
should bear in mind that its framework is as follows: 

I. Exordium, Paragraphs 1-8. In this the orator en- 
deavors to obtain the attention and good will of his audience. 

II. Status. Paragraphs 9-14. Here Burke states what 
he intends to prove. 

III. Statement of Facts. Paragraphs 15-46. In these 
paragraphs Burke describes the situation with which he is 
to deal, dividing it as follows: 

(a) Population of Colonies. Paragraphs 15-16. 

{b) Commerce of Colonies. Paragraphs 17-28. 

(c) Agriculture of Colonies. Paragraph 29. 

{d) Fisheries of Colonies. Paragraph 30. 

(e) Force as a means for dealing with such powerful 
elements. Paragraphs 31-35. 

(/) Temper and Character of the Americans. Para- 
graphs 36-43- 

(g) The present state of affairs in America. Paragraphs 
44-46. 

?9 



Suggestions to Teachers 

IV. Argument, Paragraphs 47-118. 

(a) Paragraph 47. There are only three ways to deal 
with the spirit in the Colonies. 

1. To change it as inconvenient by removing the causes. 

2. To prosecute it as criminal. 

3. To comply with it as necessary. 

(b) Paragraphs 4^-57. To change the spirit by remov- 
ing the causes is impossible because population in the Colo- 
nies cannot be restricted; because it is unwise to impoverish 
the Colonies; because their temper and character cannot be 
altered unless we can change their pedigree, alter their relig- 
ion, interfere with their education, upset their system of 
slavery, and pump the ocean dry. 

(c) Paragraphs 58-63. There is no way to proceed 
against a nation as criminal because we cannot draw up an 
indictment against a whole people and we have no tribunal 
before which they can be tried; moreover, we have tried to 
treat them as criminals and failed. 

(d) Paragraph 64. There is therefore no way open 
but to^omply with the American spirit as necessary. 

(e) Paragraphs 65-75. The nature of our concession 
should be such as to meet the complaint of the Colonies, that 
they are taxed in a Parliament in which they are not 
represented. 

(/) Paragraphs 76-85. My plan is to apply to the Colo- 
nies the principles found in the cases of Ireland, Wales, 
Chester, and Durham. In each of these cases the granting 
of representation in Parliament ended troubles similar to 
those which now distract America. 

(g) Paragraphs 86-118. On account of the distance of 
the Colonies. I propose that, instead of granting them repre- 
sentation in Parliament, we pass six . resolutions affirming 
the power of the Colonial Assemblies to grant money to the 
British Government, promising that Parliament will not 
hereafter seek to impose taxes upon America, and repealing 
all legislation inconsistent therewith. 

30 



Suggestions to Teachers 

V. Refutation. Paragraphs 119-137. Here Burke an- 
swers possible objections to his sch^rne. 

VI. Peroration. Paragraphs ij 8-141. Here Burke sums 
up in a burst of eloquence seeking to show that it is the 
spirit of Concord which makes a great empire rather than 
any system of regulations. 

6. If there is time for further study it is recommended 
that the student read the speech once more, reducing each 
paragraph to a single sentence. Every well-constructed para- 
graph contains one idea and only one idea. Burke's para- 
graphs almost without exception are so constructed and 
there are few possible exercises in English which are more 
profitable than this. 

7. An additional exercise which is highly profitable if 
there is time is to read this speech sentence by sentence and 
word by word, making sure that the pupil understands the 
meaning of each word, the force of each allusion, and the 
power of every figure of speech. 

8. Before finishing with the study the pupil should reduce 
the whole speech to one paragraph, which will be constructed 
as follows: 

(a) One sentence embodying the meaning of the 
Exordium. 

{b) One sentence embodying the meaning of the Status. 

(c) Seven sentences embodying the meaning of the 
Statement of Facts. 

{d) Eight sentences embodying the meaning of the 
Argument. 

(e) One sentence covering the Refutation. 

(/) One sentence stating the substance of the Peroration. 

The English Government 

The English Government in its main outlines is the same 
as that of the United States. The principles underlying both 
are identical. The executive in the English Government is 

31 



Suggestions to Teachers 

represented by the King and in ours by the President. The 
judicial branch in ours is represented by the Supreme Court; 
in the English Government by the House of Lords. The 
legislative branch consists in each government of two houses, 
the upper and lower. Our upper house is the Senate; the 
English, the House of Lords. The lower house in our gov- 
ernment is the House of Representatives, in the English, the 
House of Commons. 

There are, however, important points of difference. Our 
President is a real executive with real power; the English 
King is merely a figurehead, a sort of hereditary grand 
master of ceremonies, though he retains much personal in- 
fluence. The real executive power in the British government 
resides in the Prime Minister, who is always the head of the 
majority party in the House of Commons. The House of 
Lords at the present time has no real power. The Cabinet, 
though it usually contains a few members from the House of 
Lords, in reality is a committee of the House of Commons 
chosen from the majority party. The Prime Minister is 
nominally appointed by the king but is really elected by the 
influential politicians in his own party. He really chooses 
the other members of the Cabinet, although they are nomi- 
nally appointed by the king. 

If the Prime Minister loses control of the House of Com- 
mons he must do one of two things. He must resign or 
appeal to the country. If he chooses the latter course there 
is a new election of members of the House of Commons. 
In case the new house thus chosen does not contain a major- 
ity who will support him he must resign. This arrangement 
keeps the executive and legislative branches of the govern- 
ment in harmony at all times and renders impossible a situa- 
tion which often occurs in ours, where it is not uncommon to 
have a president of one party and a legislature in either or 
both branches of another. It should be added that no matter 
what happens, a new Parliament in England must be elected 
every seven years. 

32 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The standard Life of Burke is that by Sir J. Prior, which 
is published in Bohn's Standard Library. Boswell's Johnson, 
Macaulay's Essays, and Trevelyan's History of the American 
Revolution contain many appreciative passages; consult the 
indexes. John Morley's Burke in the English Men of Let- 
ters is an excellent short biography. Augustine Birrell's 
Lecture on Burke in Obiter Dicta, Volume II, is the most 
entertaining account that has been written. 



QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 

1. Why is Burke worthy of our attention? Give four reasons. 

2. In what important respect did he differ as a boy from his 
brothers and sisters? 

3. What did he learn at Shackleton's school ? 

4. Describe the growth of his mind at college. 

5. Were his interests narrow or broad? Do not answer 
by a mere yes or no, but state fully the reasons for your conclusion. 

6. Give some account of his friendships. 

7. Enumerate the three greatest public questions with which 
his name is linked. 

8. State the fundamental political principle that governed all 
his conduct. 

9. If he were alive to-day, what would be his attitude toward 
autocracy? Toward socialism? 

10. In what book did he first attack anarchy? 

11. What literary labor gave him his first insight into Ameri- 
can affairs? 

12. How did he acquire his grasp on English politics? 

13. What was the dominating purpose of George III? 

14. Was George III an Englishman? 

^15. What, in Burke's opinion, was the most prominent charac- 
teristic of the American character? 

16. How many representatives did he propose that the Colony 
of New York should send to Parliament? 

17. Upon what force, in his judgment, should Great Britain 
depend in order to keep the Empire intact? 

18. Did Burke's Speech on Conciliation produce any Imme- 
diate result? Has it produced any ultimate results? If so, what? 

19. Describe the services rendered by Burke to the people 
of India. 

20. Explain wherein Burke was right and wherein he was 
wrong in his views of the French Revolution. 

39 



Questions for Review 

21. Was his attitude toward the French Revolution incon- 
sistent with his attitude toward the American Revolution? 

22. Why was he never Prime Minister? 

2S. Would it be a good thing if Members of Congress, like 
Members of Parliament, were allowed to represent districts in 
which they do not reside? 

24. Is the English system of requiring the legislature to be 
in harmony with the executive better than ours? 

25. Why are Burke's teachings -important to-day? 



Ift 



SPEECH ON CONCILIATION 
WITH AMERICA 



1. I HOPE, Sir/ that, notwithstanding the austerity ^ of 
the Chair, your good nature will incline you to some degree 
of indulgence towards human frailty.^ You will not think 
it unnatural that those who have an object depending* 
which strongly engages their hopes and fears, should be 
somewhat inclined to superstition. As I came into the House 
full of anxiety about the event ^ of my motion, I found, 
to my infinite surprise, that the grand penal bill,* by which 
we had passed sentence on the trade and sustenance of 
America, is to be returned to us from the other HouseJ I 
do confess I could not help looking on this event as a for- 
tunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of providential favor, 
by which we are put once more in possession of our delibera- 
tive capacity upon a business so very questionable in its 
nature, so very uncertain in its issue. B^ ther^turn of this 
bill, which seemed to have taken its flight forever, we are at 
this very instant nearly as free to choose a plan for our 
American Government as we were on the first day of the 
session. If, Sir, we incline to the side of conciliation, we 
are not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselves 
so) by any incongruous mixture of coercion and restraint.^ 
We are therefore called upon, as it were by a superior warning 
voice, again to attend to America; to attend to the whole 
of it together; and to review the subject with an unusual 
degree of care and calmness. 

2. gurely it is an awful ^ subject, or there is none so on 
this side of the grave. When I first had the honor of a 
seat in this House,^** the affairs of that continent pressed 

41 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

themselves upon us at the most important and most deli- 
cate object of Parliamentary attention. My little share in 
this great deliberation oppressed me. I found myself a 
partaker in a very high trust; and, having no sort of reason 
to rely on the strength of my natural abilities for the proper 
execution of that trust, I was obliged to take more than 
common pains to instruct myself in everything which relates 
to our Colonies.^^ I was not less under the necessity of 
forming some fixed ideas concerning the general policy of 
the British Empire. Something of this sort seemed to be 
indispensable, in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation ^- of pas- 
sions and opinions, to concenter my thoughts, to ballast my 
conduct, to preserve me from being blown about by every 
wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it safe 
or manly to have fresh principles to seek upon every fresh 
mail which should arrive from America. 

3. At that period I had the fortune to find myself in per- 
fect concurrence with a large majority in this House. Bow- 
ing under that high authority, and penetrated with the 
sharpness and strength of that early impression, I hav e con- 
tinued ever since, without the least deviation, in my original 
sentiments. Whether this be owing to an obstinate perse- 
verance in error, or to a religious adherence to what appears 
to me truth and reason, it is in your equity to judge.^^ 

4. Sir, Parliament having an enlarged view of objects, 
made, during this interval, more frequent changes in their 
sentiments and their conduct than could be justified in a 
particular person upon the contracted scale of private infor- 
mation.^* Biitjthough I do not hazard anything approach- 
ing to a censure on the motives of former Parliaments to all 
those alterations, one fact is undoubted — that under them the 
state of America has been kept in continual agitation. Every- 
thing administered as remedy to the public complaint, if it 
did not produce, was at least followed by, an heightening 
of the distemper; ^^ until, by a variety of experiments, that 
important country has been brought into her present situation 

42 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

— a situation which I will not miscall, which I dare not name, 
which I scarcely know how to comprehend in the terms of 
any description/^ 

5. In this posture, Sir, things stood at the beginning of 
the session. About that time, a worthy member ^^ of great 
Parliamentary experience, who, in the year 1766, filled the 
chair of the American committee with much ability, took 
me aside; and, lamenting the present aspect of our politics, 
told me things were come to such a pass that our ^^ former 
methods of proceeding in the House would be no longer 
tolerated: that the public tribunal (never too indulgent to 
a long and unsuccessful oppositions^) would now scrutinize 
our conduct with unusual severity: that the very vicissitudes 
and shiftings of Ministerial measures,^^ instead of convicting 
their authors of inconstancy and want of system, would be 
taken as an occasion of charging us with a predetermined 
discontent, which nothing could satisfy; whilst we accused 
every measure of vigor as cruel, and every proposal of lenity 
as weak and irresolute.-^ The_^ublic, he said, would not 
have patience to see us play the game out with our adver- 
saries; we must produce our hand.-^ It would be expected 
that those who for many years had been active in such affairs 
should show that they had formed some clear and decided 
idea of the principles of Colony government; and were 
capable of drawing out something like a platform of 
the ground which might be laid for future and perma- 
nent tranquility. 

6. Ijelt the truth of what my honorable friend repre- 
sented; but I felt my situation, too. His application might 
have been made with far greater propriety to many other 
gentlemen. No man was indeed ever better disposed, or 
worse qualified, for such an undertaking than myself. Though 
I gave so far in to his opinion that I immediately threw my 
thoughts into a sort of Parliamentary form,^^ I was by no 
means equally ready to produce them. It generally argues ^* 
some degree of natural impotence of mind, or some want of 

43 



speech on Conciliation with America 

knowledge of- the world, to hazard plans of government 
except from a sest of authority .^^ Propositions are made, 
not only ineffectually, but somewhat disreputably,^*' when 
the minds of men are not properly disposed for their recep- 
tion; and, for my part, I am not ambitious of ridicule — not 
absolutely a candidate for disgrace. 

7. Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in general 
no very'exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government; ^^ 
nor of any politics in which the plan is to be wholly separated 
from the execution. But when I saw that anger and violence 
prevailed every day more and more, and that things were 
hastening towards an incurable alienation of our Colonies, 
I confess my caution gave way. I felt this as one of those 
few moments in which decorum yields to a higher duty. 
Public calamity is a mighty leveller; and there are occasions 
when any, even the slightest, chance of doing good must be 
laid hold on, even by the most inconsiderable person.^^ 

8. To restore order and repose to an empire so great and 
so distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an under- 
taking that would ennoble the flights of the highest genius, 
and obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest under- 
standing.^^ Struggling a good while with these thoughts, 
by degrees I felt myself more firm. I derived, at length, some 
confidence from what in other circumstances usually produces 
timidity .'^^ I grew less anxious, even from the idea of my 
own insignificance. For, judging of what you are by what 
you ought to be, I persuaded myself that you would not reject 
a reasonable proposition because it had nothing but its reason 
to recommend it. On the other hand, being totally destitute 
of all shadow of infiuence,^^ natural or adventitious, I was 
very sure that, if my proposition were futile or dangerous — 
if it were weakly conceived, or improperly timed — there was 
nothing exterior to it of power to awe, dazzle, or delude 
you. You will see it just as it is; and you will treat it just 
as it deserves. 

g. The proposition is peace. Not peace through the me- 
44 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

dium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth 
of intricate and endless negotiations;/ not peace to arise out 
of universal discord fomented,^^ from principle, in all parts of 
the Empire ; not peace to depend on the juridical ^^ deter- 
mination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the 
shadowy boundaries of a complex government.^* It is simple 
peace; sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. 
It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles 
purely pacific.^^ I propose, by removing the ground of the 
difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting confi- 
dence of the Colonies in the Mother Country, to give per- 
manent satisfaction to your people; and (far from a scheme 
of ruling by discord) to reconcile them to each other in the 
same act, and by the bond of the very same interest which 
reconciles them to British government. 

10. My idea is nothing more. Refined ^^ policy ever has 
been the parent of confusion; and ever will be so, as- long as 
the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily 
discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at 
last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of 
mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is an healing and 
cementing principle. My plan, therefore, being formed upon 
the most simple grounds imaginable, may disappoint some 
people when they hear it. It has nothing to recommend it to 
the pruriency of curious ears. There is nothing at all new 
and captivating in it. Ithas nothing of the splendor of the 
project which has beenlately laid upon your table by the 
noble lord in the blue ribbon.^^ It does not propose to fill 
your lobby with squabbling Colony agents, who will require 
the interposition of your mace, at every instant, to keep 
the peace amongst them. It does not institute a magnificent 
auction of finance, where captivated provinces come to gen- 
eral ransom by bidding against each other, until you knock 
down the hammer, and determine a proportion of payments 
beyond all the powers of algebra to equalize and settle.^^ 

11. The plan which I shall presume to suggest derives, 

45 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

however, one great advantage from the proposition and regis- 
try of that noble lord's project. The idea of conciliation is 
admissible. First, the House, in accepting the resolution 
moved by the noble lord, has admitted, notwithstanding the 
menacing front of our address, notwithstanding our heavy 
bills of pains and penalties — that we do not think ourselves 
precluded from all ideas of free grace and bounty .^^ 

12. The House has gone further; it has declared concilia- 
tion admissible, previous to any submission on the part of 
America. It has even shot a good deal beyond that mark, 
and has admitted that the complaints of our former mode of 
exerting the right of taxation were not wholly unfounded. 
That right thus exerted is allowed to have something repre- 
hensible in it, something unwise, or something grievous ; since, 
in the midst of our heat and resentment, we, of ourselves, 
have proposed a capital ^^ alteration ; and in order to get rid 
of what seemed so very exceptionable,*^ have instituted a 
mode that is altogether new; one that is, indeed, wholly alien 
from all the ancient methods and forms of Parliament. 

13. The principle of this proceeding is large enough for 
my purpose. The means proposed by the noble lord for 
carrying his ideas into execution, I think, indeed, are very 
indifferently suited to the end; and this I shall endeavor 
to show you before I sit down. But, for the present, I take 
my ground on the admitted principle. Trfle?m to give peace. 
Peace implies reconciliation; and where there has been a 
material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner always 
imply concession on the one part or on the other. In this 
state of things I make no difficulty*^ in affirming that the 
proposal ought to originate from us. Great and acknowledged 
force is not impaired, either in effect or in opinion, by an 
unwillingness to exert itself. The superior power may offer 
peace with honor and with safety. Such an offer from such 
a power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the conces- 
sions of the weak are the concessions of fear. When such a 
one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of his superior; 

46 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

and he loses forever that time and those chances, which, as 
they happen to all men, are the strength and resources of 
all inferior power. 

^''^" 14. The capital leading questions on which you must this 
day decide are these two : First, whether you ought to con- 
cede; and secondly, what your concession ought to be. On 
the first of these questions w^e have gained, as I have just 
taken the liberty of observing to you, some ground. But 
I am sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. In- 
deed, Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the 
other of these great questions with a firm and precise judg- 
ment, jT think it may be necessary to consider distinctly the 
true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object 
which we have before ua"; because, after all our struggle, 
whether we will or not, we must govern America according 
to that nature and to those circumstances, and not according 
to our own imaginations, nor according to abstract ideas of 
right — by no means according to mere general theories of gov- 
ernment, the resort to which appears to me, in our present 
situation, no better than arrant trifling. I shall therefore 
endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some of the most 
material of these circumstances in as full and as clear a 
I manner as I am able to state them. 

**** 15. The first thing that we have to consider with regard 
to the nature of the object is the number of people in the 
Colonies. I have taken for some years a good deal of pains 
on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in 
placing the number below tw^o millions of inhabitants of 
our own European blood and color, besides at least five 
hundred thousand others,''^ who form no inconsiderable part 
of the strength and opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I 
believe, about the true number. There is no occasion to 
exaggerate where plain truth is of so much weight and im- 
portance. But whether I put the present numbers too high 
or too low is a matter of little moment. Such is the strength 
with which population shoots in that part of the world, that, 

47 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

state the numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute 
continues, the exaggeration ends.** Whilst we are discussing 
any given magnitude, they are grown to it. Whilst we spend 
our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two mil- 
lions, we shall find we have millions more to manage. Your 
children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than 
they spread from families to communities, and from villages 
to nations. 

1 6. I put this consideration of the present and the grow- 
ing numbers in the front of our deliberation, because. Sir, 
this consideration will make it evident to a blunter discern- 
ment than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, 
occasional system will be at all suitable to such an object.*^ 
It will show you that it is not to be considered as one of those 
minima *^ which are out of the eye and consideration of 
the law; not a paltry excrescence of the state; not a mean 
dependent, who may be neglected with little damage and 
provoked with little danger. It will prove that some degree 
of care and caution is required in the handling such an object; 
it will show that you ought not, in reason, to trifle with so 
large a mass of the interests and feelings of the human 
race. You could at no time do so without guilt; and be 
assured you will not be able to do it long with impunity.*^ 

17. But the population of this country, the great and grow- 
ing population, though a very important consideration, will lose 
much of its weight if not combined with other circumstances. 
The commerce of your Colonies is out of all proportion beyond 
the numbers of the people. This ground of their commerce 
indeed has been trod some days ago, and with great ability, 
by a distinguished person at your bar.*^ This gentleman, 
after thirty-five years — it is so long since he first appeared 
at the same place to plead for the commerce of Great Britain 
— ^has come again before you to plead the same cause, without 
any other effect of time, than that to the fire of imagination 
and extent of erudition*^ which even then marked him as 
one of the first literary characters of his age, he has added 

48 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

a consummate knowledge in the commercial interest of his 
country, formed by a long course of enlightened and dis- 
criminating experience. 

1 8. Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such a 
person with any detail, if a great part of the members who 
now fill the House had not the misfortune to be absent when 
he appeared at your bar. Besides, Sir, I propose to take the 
matter at periods of time somewhat different from his. There 
is, if I mistake not, a point of view from whence, if you will 
look at the subject, it is impossible that it should not make 
an impression upon you. 

ig. I have in my hands two accounts: one a compara- 
tive state ^^ of the export trade of England to its Colo- 
nies, as it stood in the year 1 704, and as it stood in the year 
1772; the other a state of the export trade of this country 
to its Colonies alone, as it stood in 1772, compared with 
the whole trade of England to all parts of the world (the 
Colonies included) in the year 1704. They are from good 
vouchers; the latter period from the accounts on your table, 
the earlier from an original manuscript of Davenant, who 
first established the Inspector General's office, which has 
been ever since his time so abundant a source of Parlia- 
mentary information. 

20. The export trade to the Colonies consists of three 
great branches: the African — which, terminating almost 
wholly in the Colonies, must be put to the account of their 
commerce, — the West Indian, and the North American. All 
these are so interwoven that the attempt to separate them 
would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole ; and, if not 
entirely destroy, would very much depreciate the value of all 
the parts. I therefore consider these three denominations 
to be, what in effect they are, one trade. 

21. The trade to the Colonies, taken on the export side, 
at the beginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, 
stood thus: — 

4 49 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

Exports to North America and the West Indies. £483,265 
To Africa 86,665 



^569,930 



22. In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year 
between the highest and lowest of those lately laid on your 
table, the account was as follows: — 

To North America and the West Indies £4,791,734 

To Africa 866,398 

To which, if you add the export trade from 

Scotland, which had in 1704 no existence. . 364,000 



£6,022,132 



23. From five hundred and odd thousand, it has grown 
to six millions. It has increased no less than twelve-fold. 
This is the state of the Colony trade as compared with itself 
at these two periods within this century; — and this is matter 
for meditation. But this is not all. Examine my second 
account. See how the export trade to the Colonies alone in 
1772 stood in the other point of view; that is as compared 
to the whole trade of England in 1704; — 

The whole export trade of England, including 

that to the Colonies, in 1704 £6,509,000 

Export to the Colonies alone, in 1772 6,024,000 



Difference, £485,000 

24. The trade with America alone is now within less than 
£500,000 of being equal to what this great commercial 
nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century 
with the whole world! If I had taken the largest year of 
those on your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it 
will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural pro- 
tuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the 
body? The reverse. It is the very food that has nourished 
every other part into its present magnitude. Our general 

50 



speech on Conciliation with America 

trade has been greatly augmented, and augmented more or 
less in almost every part to which it ever extended; but with 
this material difference, that of the six millions which in the 
beginning of the century constituted the whole mass of our 
export commerce, the Colony trade was but one-twelfth part; 
it is now (as a part of sixteen millions) considerably more 
than a third of the whole. This is the relative proportion 
of the importance of the Colonies at these two periods; 
and all reasoning concerning our mode of treating them must 
have this proportion as its basis; or it is a reasoning weak, 
rotten, and sophistical.^^ 

25. Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry 
over this great consideration. It is good for us to be here. 
We stand where we have an immense view of what is, and 
what is past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness, rest upon the 
future.^- Let us, however, before we descend from this noble 
eminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity 
has happened within the short period of the life of man. It 
has happened within sixty-eight years. There are those 
alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. For 
instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages 
of the progress. He vv^as in 1704 of an age at least to 
be made to comprehend such things. He was then old 
enough acta parentum jam legere, ef qucu sit potuit cogno- 
scere virfus.^^ Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspi- 
cious ^* youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made him 
one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate, 
men of his age, had opened to him in vision that when in the 
fourth generation ^^ the third Prince of the House of Bruns- 
wick had sat twelve years on the throne of that nation which, 
by the happy issue of moderate and healing counsels, was to be 
made Great Britain, he should see his son. Lord Chancellor 
of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to 
its fountain,^® and raise him to a higher rank of peerage, 
whilst he enriched the family with a new one — if, amidst 
these bright and happy scenes of domestic honor and pros- 

51 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

parity, that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and 
unfolded the rising glories of his country, and, whilst he 
was gazing with admiration on the then commercial grandeur 
of England, the genius should point out to him a little speck, 
scarcely visible in the mass of the national interest, a small 
seminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should 
tell him: " Young man, there is America — ^which at this day 
serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage 
men, and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of 
death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce 
which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever Eng- 
land has been growing to by a progressive increase of 
improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession 
of civilizing conquests and civilizing settlements in a series of 
seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to her 
by America in the course of a single life! " ^^ If this state 
of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require 
all the sanguine ^^ credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow 
of enthusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he 
has lived to see it I Fortunate, indeed, if he lives to see 
nothing that shall vary the prospect, and cloud the setting 
of his day! ^^ 

26. Excuse me, Sir, if turning from such thoughts I re- 
sume this comparative view once more. You have seen it 
on a large scale; look at it on a small one. I will point out 
to your attention a particular instance of it in the single 
province of Pennsylvania. In the year 1704 that province 
called for £11,459 i^ value of your commodities, native and 
foreign. This was the whole. What did it demand in 1772? 
Why, nearly fifty times as much ; for in that year the export 
to Pennsylvania was £507,909, nearly equal to the export to 
all the Colonies together in the first period. 

27. I choose. Sir, to enter into these minute and par- 
ticular details, because generalities, which in all other cases 
are apt to heighten and raise the subject, have here a ten- 
dency to sink it. When we speak of the commerce with our 

52 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

Colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, 
and imagination cold and barren. 

28. So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object, in view 
of its commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. 
If I were to detail the imports, I could show how many- 
enjoyments they procure which deceive the burthen of life; 
how many materials which invigorate the springs of national 
industry, and extend and animate every part of our foreign 
and domestic commerce. This would be a curious ^^ subject 
indeed; but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so 
vast and various. 

29. I pass, therefore, to the Colonies in another point of 
view, their agriculture. This they have prosecuted with 
such a spirit, that, besides feeding plentifully their own 
growing multitude, their annual export of grain, compre- 
hending rice, has some years ago exceeded a million in value. 
Of their last harvest I am persuaded they will export much 
more. At the beginning of the century some of these Colo- 
nies imported corn from the Mother Country. For some 
time past the Old World has been fed from the New. The 
scarcity which you have felt would have been a desolating 
famine, if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, 
with a Roman charity, had not put the full breast of its youth- 
ful exuberance to the mouth of its exhausted parent.^^ 

j^-v 30. As to the wealth which the Colonies have drawn 
ffem the sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully 
opened at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions 
of value, for they seemed even to excite your envy; and yet 
the spirit by which that enterprising employment has been 
exercised ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your 
esteem and admiration. And pray. Sir, what in the world 
is equal to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the 
manner in which the people of New England have of late 
carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them among 
the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating 
into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's 

53 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic 
circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite 
region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes,®- and 
engaged under the frozen Serpent of the south. Falkland 
Island,*'^ which seemed too remote and romantic an object 
for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting- 
place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the 
equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the accu- 
mulated winter of both the poles.®* We know that whilst 
some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the 
coast of Africa, others run the longitude and pursue their 
gigantic game along the coast of Brazil.*^^ No sea but what 
is vexed by their fisheries; no climate that is not witness to 
their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the 
activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of 
English enterprise ever carried this most perilous mode of 
hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by 
this recent people; a people who are still, as it were, but 
in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of man- 
hood/ \When I contemplate these things; when I know that 
the Colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of 
ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form 
by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, 
but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous 
nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection ; 
when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable 
they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and 
all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt 
and die away within me. My rigor relents. I pardon some- 
thing to the spirit of liberty.^® 

■ 31. I am sensible, Sir, that all which I have asserted in 
my detail is admitted in the gross; ®^ but that quite a differ- 
ent conclusion is drawn from it. America, gentlemen ®^ say, 
is a noble object. It is an object well worth fighting for. 
Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining 
them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice 

54 ^ 



speech on Conciliation with America 

of means by their complexions®^ and their habits. Those 
who understand the miHtary art '^ will of course have some 
predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the 
state may have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. But 
I confess, possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion 
is much more in favor of prudent management than of force; 
considering force not as an odious, but a feeble instrument 
for preserving a people so numerous, so active, so growing, 
so spirited as this, in a profitable and subordinate connec- 
tion with us. 

JA0. First, Sir, permit me to observe that the use of force 
alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it 
does notremove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation 
is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered. 
J^ IJ. My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not 
always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. 
If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, con- 
ciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further 
hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are some- 
times bought by kindness; but they can never be begged 
as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence. 
1^^, ^ A further objection to force is, that you impair the 
object by your very endeavors to preserve it. The thing you 
fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, 
sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less 
will content me than whole America. I do not choose to 
consume its strength along with our own, because in all parts 
it is the British strength that I consume. I do not choose 
to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting 
conflict; and still less in the midst of it. I may escape; 
but I can make no insurance against such an event. Let me 
add, that I do not choose wholly to break the American 
spirit; because it is the spirit that has made the country. 

35. Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favor of force 
as an instrument in the rule of our Colonies. Their growth 

«d their utility has been owing to methods altogether dif- 
55 



speech on Conciliation with America 

ferent. Our ancient indulgence has been said to be pursued 
to a fault. It may be so. But we know, if feeling is evidence, 
that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt to mend 
it; and our sin far more salutary than our penitence.'^^ 

3d. These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that 
high opinion of untried force by which many gentlemen, 
for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, 
seem to be so greatly captivated. But there is still behind 
a third ^- consideration concerning this object which serves 
to determine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought 
to be pursued in the management of America, even more 
than its population and its commerce — I mean its temper 
and character. 

3^^. In this character of the Americans, a love of free- 
dom ^^ is the predominating feature which marks and distin- 
guishes the whole; and as an ardent is always a jealous 
affection, your Colonies become suspicious, restive,^* and 
untractable whenever they see the least attempt to wrest 
from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane,^^ what 
they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce 
spirit of liberty is stronger in the English Colonies probably 
than in any other people of the earth, and this from a great 
variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the true 
temper of their minds and the direction which this spirit 
takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely. 

3^1 First, the people of the Colonies are descendants of 
Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, 
respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The Colonists 
emigrated from you when "^^ this part of your character was 
most predominant; and they took this bias and direction 
the moment they parted from your'hands. They are there- 
fore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to 
English ideas, and on English principles. Abstract liberty, 
like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty 
inheres in some sensible object; " and every nation hais 
formed to itself some favorite point, which by way of cj 

56 



I 



speech on Conciliation with America 

necce becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, 
you know, Sir, that the great contests for freedom in this 
country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the ques- 
tion of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient common- 
wealths turned primarily on the right of election of magis- 
trates; or on the balance among the several orders of the 
state. The question of money was not with them so imme- 
diate. But in England it was otherwise. On this point of 
taxes the ablest pens, and most eloquent tongues, have been 
exercised; the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In 
order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning the impor- 
tance of this point, it was not only necessary for those who 
in argument defended the excellence of the English Con- 
stitution to insist on this privilege of granting money as a 
dry point of fact, and to prove that the right had been 
acknowledged in ancient parchments and blind usages "^^ to 
reside in a certain body called a House of Commons. They 
went much farther; they attempted to prove, and they suc- 
ceeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the particular 
nature of a House of Commons as an immediate representa- 
tive of the people, whether the old records had delivered this 
oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate , as a 
fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people 
must in effect themselves, mediately "^^ or immediately, pos- 
sess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow 
of liberty can subsist.^'' The Colonies draw from you, as 
with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their love 
of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this specific 
point of taxing. Liberty might be safe, or might be endan- 
gered, in twenty other particulars, without their being much 
pleased or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse; and, as they 
found that beat, they thought themselves sick or sound. 
I do not say whether they were right or wrong in applying 
your general arguments to their own case. It is not easy, 
indeed, to make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries.®^ 
le fact is, that they did thus apply those general arguments; 



I 



57 y ^■X:^-^'^.-'^'''^ 



speech on Conciliation with America 

and your mode of governing them, whether through len^^ or 
indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in the 
imagination that they, as well as you, had an interest in these 
common principles. 

Jl^ They were further confirmed in this pleasing error^y 
by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Theiijir 
governments are popular in an high degree; some are merely- 
popular; ^- in all, the popular representative is the most 
weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary 
government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, 
and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive 
them of their chief importance. 

4|. If anything were wanting to this necessary operation 
of the form of government, religion would have given it a 
complete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in 
this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their 
mode of professing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. 
flhe people are Protestants; and of that kind which is the 
most adverse to all implicit ^^ submission of mind and opin- 
ion. This is a persuasion not only favorable to liberty, 
but built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of 
this averseness in the dissenting churches from all that looks 
like absolute government is so much to be sought in their re- 
ligious tenets,^* as in their history. Every one knows that the 
Roman Catholic religion is at least coeval ^^ with most of 
the governments where it prevails; that it has generally 
gone hand in hand with them, and received great favor 
and every kind of support from authority. The Church of 
England, too, was formed from her cradle under the nursing 
care of regular government. But the dissenting interests have 
sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of 
the world, and could justify that opposition only on a strong 
claim to natural liberty. Their very existence depended on 
the powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. All 
Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of 
dissent.^® But the religion most prevalent in our Northej 

58 



lejn 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

Colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is 
the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protes- 
tane religion.^'' This religion, under a variety of denomina- 
tions agreeing in nothing but in the communion of the spirit 
of liberty, is predominant in most of the Northern Provinces, 
where the Church of England, notwithstanding its legal 
rights, is in reality no more than a sort of private sect, not 
composing most probably the tenth of the people. The 
Colonists left England when this spirit was high, and in 
the emigrants was the highest of all ; and even that stream of 
foreigners which has been constantly flowing into these Colo- 
nies has, for the greatest part, been composed of dissenters 
from the establishments^^ of their several countries, who 
have brought with them a temper and character far from 
alien to that of the people v/ith whom they mixed. 

4JL» Sir, I can perceive by their manner that some gentle- 
men object to the latitude ^^ of this description, because 
in the Southern Colonies the Church of England forms a large 
body, and has a regular establishment. It is certainly true. 
There is, however, a circumstance attending these Colonies 
which, in my opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, 
and makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty 
than in those to the northward. It is that in Virginia and 
the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of slaves. Where 
this is the case in any part of the world, those who are free 
are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. Free- 
dom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank 
and privilege. Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries 
where it is a common blessing and as broad and general as 
the air, may be united with much abject toil, with great 
misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks, 
amongst them, like something that is more noble and liberal. 
I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of this 
sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; 
but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so; 
,a|jd these people of the Southern Colonies are much more 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

strongly, and with an higher and more stubborn spirit, 
attached to liberty than those to the northward. Such were 
all the ancient commonwealths; such were our Gothic ances- 
tors; such in our days were the Poles; and such will be all 
masters of slaves, who are not slaves themselves. In such a 
people the haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit 
of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.^ ° 

^ Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our 
Colonies which contributes no mean part towards the growth 
and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education. 
In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general 
a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful; 
and in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number 
of the deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all 
who read, and most do read, endeavor to obtain some smatter- 
ing in that science. I have been told by an eminent book- 
seller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of 
popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law 
exported to the Plantations.^^ The Colonists have now fallen 
into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear that 
they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's Commentar- 
ies^- in America as in England. General Gage^^ marks 
out this disposition very particularly in a letter on your table. 
He states that all the people in his government are lawyers, 
or smatterers in law; and that in Boston they have been 
enabled, by successful chicane, wholly to evade many parts 
of one of your capital penal constitutions.^* The smartness 
of debate will say that this knowledge ought to teach them 
more clearly the rights of legislature, their obligations to 
obedience, and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty 
well. But my honorable and learned friend ^^ on the floor, 
who condescends to mark what I say for animadversion,®^ 
will disdain that ground. He has heard, as well as I, that 
when great honors and great emoluments ^"^ do not win over 
this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a formidable ^* 
adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and 

60 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

broken by these happy ^^ methods, it is stubborn and litig- 
ious.^^'' Abewit studia in mores }^^ This study renders men 
acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in 
defense, full of resources. In other countries, the people, 
more simple, and of a less mercurial ^^^ cast, judge of an ill 
principle in government only by an actual grievance; here 
they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the 
grievance by the badness of the principle. ^ They augur 
misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the approach of 
tyranny in every tainted breeze. ^^^ 

^ The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the Colo- 
nies is hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely 
moral, but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. 
Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. 
No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in 
weakening government.^^* Seas roll, and months pass, be- 
tween the order and the execution; and the want of a speedy 
explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole 
system. You have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance, 
who carry your bolts in their pounces ^'^^ to the remotest 
verge of the sea. But there a power steps in that limits 
the arrogance of raging passions and furious elements, and 
says, So far shalt thou go, and no farther. Who are you, 
that you should fret and rage, and bite the chains of nature? 
Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who 
have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into 
which empire can be thrown. In large bodies the circula- 
tion ^^^ of power must be less vigorous at the extremities. 
Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern Egypt and 
Arabia and Kurdistan as he governs Thrace; nor has he the 
same dominion in Crimea and Algiers which he has at Brusa 
and Smyrna.^^^ Despotism itself is obliged to truck and 
huckster."^ The Sultan gets such obedience as he can. 
He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at all ; and 
the whole of the force and vigor of his authority in his center 
is derived from a prudent relaxation in all his borders. Spain, 

6i 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

in her provinces, is, perhaps, not so well obeyed as you are 
in yours. She compKes, too; she submits; she watches 
times.^^^ This is the immutable condition, the eternal law, 
of extensive and detached empire. 

4^ Then, Sir, from these six capital sources—of descent, 
of form of government, of religion in the Northern Provinces, 
of manners in the Southern, of education, of the remoteness 
of situation from the first mover of government — from all 
these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It has 
grown with the growth of the people in your Colonies, and 
increased with the increase of their wealth; a spirit that 
unhappily meeting with an exercise of power in England 
which, however lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of 
liberty, much less with theirs, has kindled this flame that is 
ready to consume us.^^*^ 

4^. I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this 
excess, or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps a 
more smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in them 
would be more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of liberty 
might be desired more reconcilable with an arbitrary and 
boundless authority. Perhaps we might wish the Colonists 
to be persuaded that their liberty is more secure when held 
in trust for them by us, as their guardians during a perpetual 
minority ,^^^ than with any part of it in their own hands. The 
question is, not whether their spirit deserves praise or blame, 
but — ^what, in the name of God, shall we do with it? You 
have before you the object, such as it is, with all its glories, 
with all its imperfections on its head. You see the magni- 
tude, the importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. 
By all these considerations we are strongly urged to deter- 
mine something concerning it. We are called upon to fix 
some rule and line for our future conduct which may give 
a little stability to our politics, and prevent the return of 
such unhappy deliberations as the present. Every such 
return will bring the matter before us in a still more untract- 
able^^- form. For what astonishing and incredible things 

62 



^ Speech on Conciliation with America 



»l/v/v 



have we not seen already! What monsters have not been 
generated from this unnatural contention! Whilst every 
principle of authority and resistance has been pushed, upon 
both sides, as far as it would go, there is nothing so solid 
and certain, either in reasoning or in practice, that has not 
been shaken. Until very lately all authority in America 
seemed to be nothing but an emanation ^^^ from yours. Even 
the popular part of the Colony Constitution derived all its 
activity and its first vital movement from the pleasure of 
the Crown.^^* 'We thought, Sir, that the utmost which the 
discontented Colonists could do was to disturb authority; 
we never dreamt they could of themselves supply it — knowing 
in general what an operose^^^ business it is to establish a 
government absolutely new. But having, for our purposes 
in this contention, resolved that none but an obedient Assem- 
bly should sit, the humors ^^*^ of the people there, finding 
all passage through the legal channel ^^^ stopped, with great 
violence broke out another way. Some provinces have tried 
their experiment, as we have tried ours; and theirs has suc- 
ceeded. They have formed a government sufficient for its 
purposes, without the bustle of a revolution or the trouble- 
some formality of an election. Evident necessity and tacit 
consent have done the business in an instant .^^^ So well 
they have done it, that Lord Dunmore — the account is among 
the fragments on your table — tells you that the new institu- 
tion is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient government 
ever was in its most fortunate periods. Obedience is what 
makes government, and not the names by which it is called ; 
not the name of Governor, as formerly, or Committee as at 
present. This new government has originated directly from 
the people, and was not transmitted through any of the ordi- 
nary artificial media of a positive constitution. It was not 
a manufacture ready formed, and transmitted to them in 
that condition from England. The evil arising from hence 
is this: that the Colonists having once found the possibility 
of enjoying the advantages of order in the midst of a struggle 

63 



speech on Conciliation with America 

for liberty, such struggles will not henceforward seem so 
terrible to the settled and sober part of mankind as they 
had appeared before the trial. 

46. Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial of 
the exercise of government to still greater lengths, we wholly 
abrogated the ancient government of Massachusetts.^^* We 
were confident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect, 
of anarchy ^-^ would instantly enforce a complete subrfiission. 
The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face 
of things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable.^^^ A vast 
province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable 
degree of health and vigor for nearly a twelvemonth, without 
Governor, without public Council, without judges, without 
executive magistrates. How long it will continue in this 
state, or what may arise out of this unheard-of situation, 
how can the wisest of us conjecture? Our late experience has 
taught us that many of those fundamental principles, for- 
merly believed infallible, are either not of the importance 
they vv^ere imagined to be, or that we have not at all adverted 
to some other far more important and far more powerful 
principles, v/hich entirely overrule those we had considered 
as omnipotent.^^^ I am much against any further experi- 
ments which tend to put to the proof any more of these 
allowed opinions which contribute so much to the public tran- 
quility. In effect, we suffer as much at home by this loosening 
of all ties, and this concussion of all established opinions, 
as we do abroad; for in order to prove that the Americans 
have no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring 
to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of 
our own. To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, 
we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself; 
and we never seem to gain a paltry advantage over them in 
debate without attacking some of those principles, or deriding 
some of those feelings, for which our ancestors have shed 

I their blood. 

-- 4^ But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious 

64 



speech on Conciliation with America 

experiments, I do not mean to preclude the fullest inquiry. 
Far from it. Far from deciding on a sudden or partial 
view, I would patiently go round and round the subject, 
and survey it minutely in every possible aspect. Sir, jyf 
I were capable of engaging you to an equal attention, I 
v/ould state that, as far as I am capable of discerning, there 
are but three v/ays of proceeding relative to this stubborn 
spirit which , prevails in your Colonies, and disturbs your 
government, '^'.These are — to change that spirit, as incon- 
venient, by removing the causes ; to prosecute it as criminal ; 
or to comply with it as necessary. J I would not be guilty 
of an imperfect enumeration ; I cannthink of but these three. 
Another has indeed been started — that of giving up the 
Colonies; but it met so slight a reception that I do not think 
myself obliged to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing 
but a little sally of anger, like the frowardness of peevish 
children, who, when they cannot get all they would have, are 
resolved to take nothing.^ -^ 

44 The first of these plans — to change the spirit, as in- 
convenient, by removing the causes— I think is the most 
like a systematic proceeding. It is radical ^-* in its principle; 
but it is attended with great difficulties, some of them little 
short, as I conceive, of impossibilities. This will appear by 
examining into the plans which have been proposed. 

v^. As the growing population in the Colonies is evidently 
one cause of their resistance, it was last session mentioned 
in both Houses, by men of weight, and received not without 
applause, that in order to check this evil it would be proper 
for the Crown to make no further grants of land. But to 
this scheme there are two objections. The first, that there 
is already so much unsettled land in private hands as to 
afford room for an immense future population, although the 
Crown not only withheld its grants, but annihilated its soil. 
If this be the case, then the only effect of this avarice of 
desolation, this hoarding of a royal wilderness, would be to 
raise the value of the possessions ia the hands of the great 
J 65 



speech on Conciliation with America 

private monopolists/-^ without any adequate check to the 
growing and alarming mischief of population. 

50. But, if you stopped your grants, what would be the 
consequence? The people would occupy without grants. 
They have already so occupied in many places. You cannot 
station garrisons in every part of these deserts.^ ^^ If you 
drive the people from one place, they will carry on their 
annual tillage, and remove with their flocks and herds to 
another. Many of the people in the back settlements are 
already little attached to particular situations. Already they 
have topped the Appalachian Mountains. From thence they 
behold before them an immense plain, one vast, rich, level 
meadow; a square of five hundred miles. Over this they 
would wander without a possibility of restraint; they w^ould 
change their manners with the habits of their life; would soon 
forget a government by which they were disowned; would 
become hordes of English Tartars,^^^ and, pouring down 
upon your unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, 
become masters of your governors and your counsellors, your 
collectors and comptrollers, and of all the slaves that adhered 
to them. Such would, and in no long time must be, the effect 
of attempting to forbid as a crime and to suppress as an evil 
the command and blessing of Providence, Increase and multi- 
ply. Such would be the happy result of the endeavor to keep 
as a lair of wild beasts that earth which God, by an express 
charter, has given to the children of men. Far different, 
and surely much wiser, has been our policy hitherto. Hitherto 
we have invited our people, by every kind of bounty, to fixed 
establishments. We have invited the husbandman to look to 
authority for his title. We have taught him piously to 
believe in the mysterious virtue of wax and parchment. 
We have thrown each tract of land, as it was peopled, into 
districts, that the ruling power should never be wholly out 
of sight. We have settled all we could; and we have care- 
fully attended every settlement with government. 

51. Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for 

66 



speech on Conciliation with America 

the reasons I have just given, I think this new project of 
hedging-in population to be neither prudent nor practicable. 

52. To impoverish the Colonies in general, and in par- 
ticular to arrest the noble course of their marine enterprises, 
would be a more easy task. I freely confess it. We have 
shown a disposition to a system of this kind, a disposition 
even to continue the restraint after the offense, looking on our- 
selves as rivals to our Colonies, and persuaded that of course 
we must gain all that they shall lose. Much mischief we may 
certainly do. The power inadequate to all other things 
is often more than sufficient for this. I do not look on the 
direct and immediate power of the Colonies to resist our 
violence as very formidable.^^^ In this, however, I may be 
mistaken. But when I consider that we have Colonies for 
no purpose but to be serviceable to us, it seems to my poor 
understanding a little preposterous to make them unservice- 
able in order to keep them obedient. It is, in truth, nothing 
more than the old and, as I thought, exploded ^^^ problem 
of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its subjects into sub- 
mission. But remember, when you have completed your 
system of impoverishment, that nature still proceeds in her 
ordinary course; that discontent will increase with misery; 
and that there are critical moments in the fortune of all states 
when they who are too weak to contribute to your prosperity 
may be strong enough to complete your ruin. Spoliatis 
arma supersunt}^^ 

53. The temper and character which prevail in our Colo- 
nies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We 
cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people, and 
persuade them that they are not sprung from a nation in 
whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language 
in which they would hear you tell them this tale would detect 
the imposition; your speech would betray you. An English- 
man is the unfittest person on earth to argue another English- 
man into slavery. 

54. I think it is nearly as little in our power to change 

67 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

their republican religion as their free descent; or to substitute 
the Roman Catholic as a penalty, or the Church of England 
as an improvement. The mode of inquisition and dragoon- 
ing ^^^ is going out of fashion in the Old World, and I should 
not confide much to their efficacy in the New. The education 
of the Americans is also on the same unalterable bottom with 
their religion. You cannot persuade them to burn their books 
of curious science; to banish their lawyers from their courts 
of laws; or to quench the lights of their assemblies by refus- 
ing to choose those persons who are best read in their privi- 
leges. It would be no less impracticable to think of wholly 
annihilating the popular assemblies in which these lawyers 
sit. The army, by which we must govern in their place, would 
be far more chargeable ^^- to us, not quite so effectual, and 
perhaps in the end full as difficult to be kept in obedience. 

55. With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia 
and the Southern Colonies, it has been proposed, I know, 
to reduce it by declaring a general enfranchisement ^^^ of 
their slaves. This object has had its advocates and panegy- 
rists; ^^* yet I never could argue myself into any opinion 
of it. Slaves are often much attached to their masters. A 
general wild offer of liberty would not always be accepted. 
History furnishes few instances of it. It is sometimes as 
hard to persuade slaves to be free, as it is to compel freemen 
to be slaves; and in this auspicious ^^^ scheme we should 
have both these pleasing tasks on our hands at once. But 
when we talk of enfranchisement, do we not perceive that 
the American master may enfranchise too, and arm servile 
hands in defense of freedom? — a measure to which other 
people have had recourse more than once, and not without 
success, in a desperate situation of their affairs. 

56. Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull 
as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect 
the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold 
them to their present masters? — from that nation, one of 
whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal 

68 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

to deal any more in that inhuman traffic? An offer of free- 
dom from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them 
in an African vessel which is refused an entry into the ports 
of Virginia or Carolina with a cargo of three hundred Angola 
negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea captain 
/attempting at the same instant to publish his proclamation 
of liberty, and to advertise his sale of slaves/*^ 

>S^,. But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got 
ver/ The ocean remains. You cannot pump this dry; and 
as long as it continues in its present bed, so long all the 
causes which weaken authority by distance will continue. 

Ye gods, annihilate but space and time, 
And make two lovers happy! 

was a pious and passionate prayer; but just as reasonable as 
many of the serious wishes of grave and solemn politicians. 

Ufc If then. Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of any 
alterative course for changing the moral causes, and not 
quite easy to remove the natural, which produce prejudices 
irreconcilable to the late exercise of our authority — but that 
the spirit infallibly will continue, and, continuing, will pro- 
duce such effects as now embarrass us — the second mode 
under consideration is to prosecute that spirit in its overt ^^^ 
acts as criminal. 

^ %g:* At this proposition I must pause a moment. The 
thing seems a great deal too big for my ideas of jurisprudence. 
It should seem to my way of conceiving such matters that 
there is a very wide difference, in reason and policy, between 
the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered 
individuals, or even of bands of men who disturb order within 
the state, and the civil dissensions which may, from time to 
time, on great questions, agitate the several comjnunities 
which compose a great empire. It looks to me to be narrow 
and pedantic ^^^ to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice 
to this great public contest. I do not know the method of 
drawing up an indictment against a whole people. I cannot 

69 



speech on Conciliation with America 

insult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow- 
creatures as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent indi- 
vidual (Sir Walter Raleigh) at the bar.^^^ I hope I am not 
ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted 
with magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged 
with the safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very same 
title that I am. I really think that, for wise men, this is not 
judicious; forsobermen, not decent; for minds tinctured with 
humanity, not mild and merciful. 

6^. Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an empire, 
as distinguished from a single state or kingdom. But my 
idea of it is this, that an empire is the aggregate of many 
states under one common head, whether this head be a 
monarch or a presiding republic. It does, in such constitu- 
tions, frequently happen — and nothing but the dismal, cold, 
dead uniformity of servitude can prevent its happening — that 
the subordinate parts have many local privileges and immu- 
nities.^*^ Between these privileges and the supreme common 
authority the line may be extremely nice.^*^ Of course dis- 
putes, often, too, very bitter disputes, and much ill-blood, 
will arise. But though every privilege is an exemption, in the 
case, from the ordinary exercise of the supreme authority, 
it is no denial of it. The claim of a privilege seems rather, 
ex vi termini,^^^ to imply a superior power; for to talk of the 
privileges of a state or of a person who has no superior is 
hardly any better than speaking nonsense. Now, in such 
unfortunate quarrels among the component parts of a great 
political union of communities, I can scarcely conceive any- 
thing more completely imprudent than for the head of the 
empire to insist that, if any privilege is pleaded against his 
will or his acts, his whole authority is denied; instantly to 
proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms, and to put the offending 
provinces under the ban. Will not this, Sir, very soon teach 
the provinces to make no distinctions on their part? Will it 
not teach them that the government, against which a claim of 
liberty is tantamount"^ to high treason, is a government 

70 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

to which submission is equivalent to slavery? It may not 
always be quite convenient to impress dependent communi- 
ties with such an idea. 

6t. We are, indeed, in all disputes with the Colonies, by 
the necessity of things, the judge. It is true, Sir. But I 
confess that the character of judge in my own cause is a thing 
that frightens me. Instead of filling me with pride, I am 
exceedingly humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a stern, 
assured, judicial confidence, until I find myself in something 
more like a judicial character. I must have these hesitations 
as long as I am compelled to recollect that, in my little reading 
upon such contests as these, the sense of mankind has at least 
as often decided against the superior as the subordinate 
power. Sir, let me add, too, that the opinion of my having 
some abstract right in my favor would not put me much at 
my ease in passing sentence, unless I could be sure that there 
were no rights which, in their exercise under certain circum- 
stances, were not the most odious of all wrongs and the most 
vexatious of all injustice.^** Sir, these considerations have 
great weight with me when I find things so circumstanced, 
that I see the same party at once a civil litigant against 
me in point of right and a culprit before me, while I sit as 
a criminal judge on acts of his whose moral quality is to be 
decided upon the merits of that very litigation. Men are 
every now and then put, by the complexity of human affairs, 
into strange situations ; but justice is the same, let the judge 
be in what situation he will.^*^ 

6^, There is, Sir, also a circumstance which convinces me 
that this mode of criminal proceeding is not, at least in 
the present stage of our contest, altogether expedient; ^^'^ 
which is nothing less than the conduct of those very per- 
sons who have seemed to adopt that mode by lately declaring 
a rebellion in Massachusetts Bay, as they had formerly 
addressed^*^ to have traitors brought hither, under an Act 
of Henry the Eighth, for trial. For though rebellion is 
declared, it is not proceeded against as such, nor have any 

71 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

steps been taken towards the apprehension "^^ or conviction 
of any individual offender, either on our late or our former 
Address; but modes of public coercion have been adopted, 
and such as have much more resemblance to a sort of qualified 
hostility towards an independent power than the punishment 
of rebellious subjects. All this seems rather inconsistent; but 
it shows how difficult it is to apply these juridical ^*^ ideas 
to our present case. 

^, In this situation, let us seriously and cooll> ponder. 
What is it we have got by all our menaces, which have been 
many and ferocious? What advantage have we derived from 
the penal laws we have passed, and which, for the time, have 
been severe and numerous? What advances have we made 
towards our object by the sending of a force which, by land 
and sea, is no contemptible strength? Has the disorder 
abated? Nothing less. When I see things in this situation 
after such confident hopes, bold promises, and active exer- 
tions, I cannot, for my life, avoid a suspicion that the plan 
itself is not correctly right. 

6%, If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of 
American liberty be for the greater part, or rather entirely, 
impracticable; if the ideas of criminal process be inappli- 
cable — or, if applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient; 
what way yet remains? No way is open but the third and 
last — to comply with the American spirit as necessary; or, 
if you please, to submit to it as a necessa^ evil. 
"^"61. If we adopt this mode — ^if we mean to conciliate and 
concede, — let us see of what nature the concession ought 
to be. To ascertain the nature of our concession, we must 
look at their complaint. The Colonies complain that they 
have not the characteristic mark and seal of British freedom. 
They complain that they are taxed in a Parliament in which 
they are not represented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, 
you must satisfy them with regard to this complaint. If 
you mean to please any people you must give them the boon 
which they ask; not what you may think better for them, 

72 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

but of a 'kiAd totally different. Such an act may be a wise 
regulation, but it is no concession; whereas our present theme 
is the mode of giving satisfaction. 

/^^r Sir, I think you must perceive that I am resolved this 
day to have nothing at all to do with the question of the 
right of taxation.^^^ Some gentlemen startle — but it is true; 
I put it totally out of the question. It is less than nothing in 
my consideration. I do not indeed wonder, nor will you, 
Sir, that gentlemen of profound learning are fond of display- 
ing it on this profound subject. But my consideration is nar- 
row, confined, and wholly limited to the policy ^^^ of the 
question. I do not examine whether the giving away a man's 
money be a power excepted and reserved out of the general 
trust of government, and how far all mankind, in all forms 
of polity ,^^- are entitled to an exercise of that right by the 
charter of nature; or whether, on the contrary, a right of 
taxation is necessarily involved in the general principle of 
legislation, and inseparable from the ordinary supreme power. 
These are deep questions, where great names militate ^^^ 
against each other, where reason is perplexed, and an appeal 
to authorities only thickens the confusion; for high and 
reverend authorities lift up their heads on both sides, and 
there is no sure footing in the middle. This point is the great 

Serbonian bog, 
Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, 
Where armies whole have sunk/°* 

I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though in 
such respectable company > The question witbi -me^is^not- 
whether_yau have Eijdghl-la render your people ^ ^nlssrabl^ 
but whether jt is no t your interest to mnke . them h^ p pyl i 
jtjsjiQt \gha,t a. lawyer tells meX»M^4ej-^ut-what humaur 
ityjrejisqn_^_Mld4i2S!d£S^^ Is a political 

act the worse for being a generous one? Is no concession 
proper but that which is made from your want of right to 
keep what you grant? Or does it lessen the grace or dignity 

73 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

of relaxing in the exercise of an odious claim because you 
have your evidence-room full of titles, and your magazines 
stuffed with arms to enforce them? What signify all those 
titles, and all those arms? Of what avail are they, when the 
reason of the thing tells me that the assertion of my title 
is the loss of my suit, and that I could do nothing but wound 
myself by the use of my own weapons? 

^'. Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute neces- 
sity of keeping up the concord of this Empire by an unity of 
spirit, though in a diversity of operations, that, if I were 
sure the Colonists had, at their leaving this country, sealed 
a regular compact of servitude; that they had solemnly 
abjured all the rights of citizens; that they had made a vow^ 
to renounce all ideas of liberty for them and their posterity to 
all generations; yet I should hold myself obliged to con- 
form to the temper I found universally prevalent in my own 
day, and to govern two millions of men, impatient of servi- 
tude, on the principles of freedom. I am not determining 
a point of law, I am restoring tranquility; and the general 
character and situation of a people must determine what 
sort of government is fitted for them. That point nothing 
else^n or ought to determine. 
'ifns^ ^6|.\My idea, therefore, without considering whether we 
yietd^s matter of right^^ or grant as matter of favor, is to 
admit the,people of our Colonies into an interest in the Con- 
stitution J',and, by recording that admission'tn. the^journals 
ol Parlmrrient, to give them as strong anTssurance as the 
nature of the thing will admit, that we mean forever to 
adhere to that solemn declaration of systematic indulgence., j 
'^ Some years ago the repeal of a revenue Act, upon its 
understood principle, might have served to show that we 
intended an unconditional abatement of the exercise of 
a taxing power. Such a measure was then sufficient to 
remove all suspicion, and to give perfect content. But unfor- 
tunate events since that time may make something further 
necessary; and not more necessary for the satisfaction of the 

74 



speech on Conciliation with America 

Colonies than for the dignity and consistency of our own 
future proceedings. 

/*! %g. I have taken a very incorrect measure of the disposi- 
tion of the House if this proposal in itself would be received 
with dislike. I think, Sir, we have few American finan-. 
ciers.^^® But our misfortune is, we are too acute, we are 
too exquisite in our conjectures of the future^or men 
oppressed with such great and present evils, ffhe more 
moderate among the opposers of Parliamentary concession 
freely confess that they hope no good from taxation, but 
they apprehend the Colonists have further views ; and if this 
point were conceded, they would instantly attack the trade 
laws.^^^ These gentlemen are convinced that this was the 
intention from the beginning, and the quarrel of the Ameri- 
cans with taxation was no more than a cloak and cover to 
this design. Such has been the language even of a gentle- 
man of real moderation, and of a natural temper well ad- 
justed to fair and equal government. I am, however. Sir, 
not a little surprised at this kind of discourse, whenever 
I hear it; and I am the more surprised on account of the 
arguments which I constantly find in company with it, and 
which are often urged from the same tnouths and on the 
same day.^ 

7^TFor instance, when we allege that it is against reason 
to tax a people under so many restraints in trade as the 
Americans, the noble lord in the blue ribbon shall tell you 
that the restraints are brutal and useless — of no advantage 
to us, and of no burthen to those on whom they are imposed;_\ 
that the trade to America is not secured by the Acts of 
Navigation, but by the natural and irresistible advantage 
of a commercial preference. 

7^. Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture of 
the debate, [^^ut when strong internal^ckcumstances are 
urged against the taxes; when the scheme is dissected: 
when experience and the nature of things are brought to 
prove and do prove, the utter impossibility of obtaining 

75 



speech on Conciliation with America 

an effective revenue from the Colonies; when those things 
are pressed, or rather press themselves, so^as to drive th.Q^ 
advocates of Colony taxes to a clear admission of the futility 
oTQie scheme; then, Sir, the sleeping trade laws revive from 
their trance, and this useless taxation is to be. kept sacred, 
not for its own sake, but as a counter-guard and security 
of the law^ of trade. ~~^ 

7^. TKen, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are mis- 
chievous, in order to preserve trade laws that are useless. 
Such is the wisdom of our plan in both its members. They 
are separately given up as of no value, and yet one is always 
to be defended for the sake of the other; but I cannot agree 
with the noble lord, nor with the pamphlet from whence he 
seems to have borrowed these ideas concerning the inutility 
of the trade laws. For, vv^ithout idolizing them,^ I am sure 
they are still, in many ways, of great use to us; and in 
former times they have been of the greatest. They do con- 
fine, and they do greatly narrow, the market for the Ameri- 
cans; but my perfect conviction of this does not help me in 
the least to discern how the revenue laws from any security 
whatsoever to the commercial regulations, or that these com- 
mercial regulations are the true ground of the quarrel, or 
that the giving way, in any one instance, of authority, is to 
lose all that may remain unconceded. 

7-|f One fact is clear and indisputable. The public and 
avowed origin of this quarrel was on taxation. This quarrel 
has indeed brought on new disputes on new questions; but 
certainly the least bitter, and the fewest of all, on the trade 
laws. To judge which of the two be the real radical cause 
of quarrel, we have to see whether the commercial dispute 
did, in order of time, precede the dispute on taxation? There 
is not a shadow of evidence for it. Next, to enable us to judge 
whether at this moment a dislike to the trade laws be the 
real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary to put the 
taxes out of the question by a repeal. See how the Americans 
act in this position, and then you will be able to discern 

76 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

correctly what is the true object of the controversy, or whether 
any controversy at all will remain. Unless you consent to 
remove this cause of difference, it is impossible, with decency, 
to assert that the dispute is not upon what it is avowed to be. 
And I would, Sir, recommend to your serious consideration 
whether it be prudent to form a rule for punishing people, 
not on their own acts, but on your conjectures? Surely it is 
preposterous at the very best. It is not justifying your anger 
by their misconduct, but it is converting your ill-will into 
their delinquency. ^ 

7^**But the Colonies will go further. Alas! alas! when 
will this speculation against fact and reason end? What 
will quiet these panic fears which we entertain of the hostile 
effect of a conciliatory conduct? Is it true that no case can 
exist in which it is proper for the sovereign to accede to the 
desires of his discontented subjects? Is there anything pecu- 
liar in this case to make a rule for itself? Is all authority 
of course lost when it is not pushed to the extreme? Is it a 
certain maxim that the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are left 
by government, the more the subject will be inclined to 
resist and rebel? ^^^ 

7^. All these objections being in fact no more than sus- 
picions, conjectures, divinations, formed in defiance of fact 
and experience, they did not, Sir, discourage me from enter- 
taining the idea of a conciliatory concession founded on the 
principles which I have just stated. ^ 

7^ In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavored to 
put myself in that frame of mind which was the most natural 
and the most reasonable, and which was certainly the most 
probable means of securing me from all error. I set out with 
a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total renunciation 
of every speculation of my own, and with a profound rever- 
ence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us 
the inheritance of so happy a constitution and so flourishing 
an empire, and, what is a thousand times more valuable, 

77 



speech on Conciliation with America 

the treasury of the maxims and principles which formed 
the one and obtained the other. 

77. During the reigns of the kings of Spain of the Aus- 
trian family/^^ whenever they were at a loss in the Spanish 
councils, it was common for their statesmen to say that they 
ought to consult the genius of Philip the Second. The genius 
of Philip the Second might mislead them, and the issue of 
their affairs showed that they had not chosen the most perfect 
standard ; but, Sir, I am sure that I shall not be misled when, 
in a case of constitutional difficulty, I consult the genius of 
the English Constitution. Consulting at that oracle ^^^ — it 
was with all due humility and piety — I found four capital 
examples in a similar case before me: those of Ireland, Wales, 
Chester, and Durham. 

78. Ireland, before the English conquest,^^^ though never 
governed by a despotic power, had no Parliament. How far 
the English Parliament itself was at that time modelled 
according to the present form is disputed among antiquaries; 
but we have all the reason in the world to be assured that a 
form of Parliament such as England then enjoyed she in- 
stantly communicated to Ireland, and we are equally sure 
that almost every successive improvement in constitutional 
liberty, as fast as it was made here, was transmitted thither. 
The feudal baronage and the feudal knighthood, the roots of 
our primitive Constitution, were early transplanted into that 
soil, and grew and flourished there. Magna Charta, if it did 
not give us originally the House of Commons, gave us at 
least a House of Commons of weight and consequence.^^- 
But your ancestors did not churlishly sit down alone to the 
feast of Magna Charta.^^^ Ireland was made immediately a 
partaker. This benefit of English laws and liberties, I con- 
fess, was not at first extended to all Ireland. Mark the 
consequence. English authority and English liberties had 
exactly the same boundaries. Your standard could never be 
advanced an inch before your privileges. Sir John Davis ^^* 
shows beyond a, doubt that the refusal of a general communi- 

78 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

cation of these rights was the true cause why Ireland was five 
hundred years in subduing; and, after the vain projects of a 
military government, attempted in the reign of Queen Eliza- 
beth, it was soon discovered that nothing could make that 
country English, in civility ^^® and allegiance, but your laws 
and your forms of legislature. It was not English arms, but 
the English Constitution, that conquered Ireland. From that 
time Ireland has ever had a general Parliament, as she had 
before a partial Parliament. You changed the people; you 
altered the religion; but you never touched the form or 
the vital substance of free government in that kingdom. 
You deposed kings; ^^^ you restored them; you altered the 
succession to theirs, as well as to your own Crown; but you 
never altered their Constitution, the principle of which was 
respected by usurpation, restored with the restoration of 
monarchy, and established, I trust, forever, by the glorious 
Revolution. This has made Ireland the great and flourishing 
kingdom that it is, and, from a disgrace and a burthen intoler- 
able to this nation, has rendered her a principal part of our 
strength and ornament. This country cannot be said ever to 
have formally taxed her. The irregular things done in the 
confusion of mighty troubles and on the hinge of great 
revolutions, even if all were done that is said to have been 
done, form no example. If they have any effect in argument, 
they make an exception to prove the rule. None of your 
own liberties could stand a moment, if the casual deviations 
from them at such times were suffered to be used as proofs 
of their nullity. By the lucrative ^^^ amount of such casual 
breaches in the Constitution, judge what the stated and fixed 
rule of supply has been in that kingdom. Your Irish pen- 
sioners would starve, if they had no other fund to live on 
than taxes granted by English authority. Turn your eyes 
to those popular grants from whence all your great supplies 
are come, and learn to respect that only source of public 
wealth in the British Empire.^^^ 

79 



\ 



speech on Conciliation with America 



79. My next example is Wales. This country was said to 
be reduced by Henry the Third. It was said more truly 
to be so by Edward the First.^^^ But though then conquered, 
it was not looked upon as any part of the realm of England. 
Its old Constitution, whatever that might have been, was 
destroyed, and no good one v/as substituted in its place. The 
care of that tract was put into the hands of Lords Marchers 
— a form of government of a very singular kind; a strange 
heterogeneous monster, something between hostility and gov- 
ernment; perhaps it has a sort of resemblance, according to 
the modes of those terms, to that of Commander-in-chief ^^^ 
at present, to whom all civil power is granted as secondary. 
The manners of the Welsh nation followed the genius of the 
government. The people were ferocious, restive, savage, and 
uncultivated; sometimes composed, never pacified. Wales, 
within itself, was in perpetual disorder, and kept the frontier 
of England in perpetual alarm. Benefits from it to the 
state there were none. Wales was only known to England 
by incursion and invasion.^^^ 

80, Sir, during that state of things, Parliament was not 
idle. They attempted to subdue the fierce spirit of the 
Welsh by all sorts of rigorous laws. They prohibited by 
statute the sending all sorts of arms into Wales, as you 
prohibit by proclamation (with something more of doubt on 
the legality) the sending arms to America.^"- They disarmed 
the Welsh by statute, as you attempted (but still with more 
question on the legality) to disarm New England by an 
instruction. They made an Act to drag offenders from 
Wales into England for trial, as you have done (but with 
more hardship) with regard to America. By another Act, 
where one of the parties was an Englishman, they ordained 
that his trial should be always by English. They made Acts 
to restrain trade, as you do; and they prevented the Welsh 
from the use of the fairs and markets, as you do the Americans 
from fisheries and foreign ports. In short, when the Statute 

80 



speech on Conciliation with America 

Book was not quite so much swelled as it is now, you find 
no less than fifteen acts of penal regulation on the subject 
of Wales. 

^ Here we rub our hands. — ^A fine body of precedents for 
me authority of Parliament and the use of it! — I admit it 
fully; and pray add likewise to these precedents that all the 
while Wales rid ^^^ this kingdom like an incubus, that it was 
an unprofitable and oppressive burthen, and that an English- 
man travelling in that country could not go six yards from 
the high road without being murdered. 

8fe The march of the human mind is slow. Sir, it was 
npt until after two hundred years discovered that, by an 
eternal law. Providence had decreed vexation to violence, 
and poverty to rapine.^^* Your ancestors did, however, at 
length open their eyes to the ill-husbandry ^^^ of injustice. 
They found that the tyranny of a free people could of all 
tyrannies the least be endured, and that laws made against a 
whole nation were not the most effectual methods of securing 
its obedience. Accordingly, in the twenty-seventh year of 
Henry the Eighth the course was entirely altered. With a 
preamble stating the entire and perfect rights of the Crown 
of England, it gave to the Welsh all the rights and privileges 
of English subjects. A political order was established; the 
military power gave way to the civil; the Marches were 
turned into Counties. But that a nation should have a right 
to English liberties, and yet no share at all in the funda- 
mental security of these liberties — the grant of their own 
property — seemed a thing so incongruous, that, eight years 
after, that is, in the thirty-fifth of that reign, a complete and 
not ill-proportioned representation by counties and boroughs 
was bestowed upon Wales by Act of Parliament. From that 
moment, as by a charm, the tumults subsided, obedience was 
restored; peace, order, and civilization followed in the train 
of liberty. When the day-star of the English Constitu- 
tion had arisen in their hearts, all was harmony within 
and without— T 

6 8i 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

— simul alba nautis 
Stella refulsit, 
Defluit saxis agitatus humor; 
Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes, 
Et minax (quod sic voluere) ponto 
Unda recumbit."® 

8|. The very same year the County Palatine ^^^ of Ches- 
ter received the same relief from its oppressions and the same 
remedy to its disorders. Before this time Chester was little 
less distempered than Wales. The inhabitants, without 
rights themselves, were the fittest to destroy the rights of 
others; and from thence Richard the Second ^"^^ drew the 
standing army of archers with which for a time he oppressed 
England. The people of Chester applied to Parliament in a 
petition penned as I shall read to you: 

To the King, our Sovereign Lord, in most humble wise shewen 
unto your excellent Majesty the inhabitants of your Grace's County 
Palatine of Chester: (i) That where the said County Palatine 
of Chester is and hath, been always hitherto exempt, excluded, 
and separated out and from your High Court of Parliament, to 
have any Knights and Burgesses within the said Court : by reason 
whereof the said inhabitants have hitherto sustained manifold 
disherisons,^* losses, and damages, as well as in their lands, goods, 
and bodies, as in the good, civil, and politic governance and main- 
tenance of the commonwealth of their said county; (2) And foras- 
much as the said inhabitants have always hitherto been bound by 
the Acts and Statutes made and ordained by your said Highness 
and your most noble progenitors, by authority of the said Court, 
as far forth as other counties, cities, and boroughs have been, that 
have had their Knights and Burgesses within your said Court of 
Parliament, and yet have had neither Knight ne Burgess there for 
the said County Palatine ; the said inhabitants, for lack thereof, 
have been oftentimes touched and grieved with Acts and Statutes 
made within the said Court, as well derogatory unto the most 
ancient jurisdictions, liberties, and privileges of your said County 
Palatine, as prejudicial unto the commonwealth, quietness, rest, 
and peace of your Grace's most bounden subjects inhabiting within 
the same."* 

83, What did Parliament with this audacious address? — 
Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an affront to Government? 

%2 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

Spurn it as a derogation from the rights of legislature? Did 
they toss it over the table? Did they burn it by the hands 
of the common hangman? — They took the petition of griev- 
ance, all rugged as it was, without softening or tempera- 
ment,^^^ unpurged of the original bitterness and indignation 
of complaint — they made it the very preamble to their Act of 
redress, and consecrated its principle to all ages in the sanc- 
tuary of legislation. 

8^. Here is my third example. It was attended with the 
success of the two former. Chester, civilized as well as 
Wales, has demonstrated that freedom, and not servitude 
is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the 
true remedy for superstition.^^^ Sir, this pattern of Chester 
was followed in the reign of Charles the Second ^^^ with 
regard to the County Palatine of Durham,^^* which is my 
fourth example. This county had long lain out of the pale ^^^ 
of free legislation. So scrupulously was the example of 
Chester followed that the style of the preamble is nearly the 
same with that of the Chester Act; and, without affecting 
the abstract extent of the authority of Parliament, it recog- 
nizes the equity ^^^ of not suffering any considerable district 
in which the British subjects may act as a body, to be taxed 
without their own voice in the grant. 

8|f,,Now, if the doctrines of policy contained in these 
preambles, and the force of these examples in the Acts of 
Parliaments, avail anything, what can be said against apply- 
ing them with regard to America? Are not the people of 
America as much Englishmen as the Welsh? The preamble 
of the Act of Henry the Eighth says the Welsh speak a 
language no way resembling that of his Majesty's English 
subjects. Are the Americans not as numerous? If we may 
trust the learned and accurate Judge Barrington's account 
of North Wales, and take that as a standard to measure the 
rest, there is no comparison. The people cannot amount to 
above 200,000; not a tenth part of the number in the Colo- 
nies. Is America in rebellion? Wales was hardly ever free 

83 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

from it. Have j^ou attempted to govern America by penal 
statutes? You made fifteen for Wales. But your legislative 
authority is perfect with regard to America. Was it less 
perfect in Wales, Chester and Durham? But America is 
virtually represented.^^'^ What! does the electric force of 
virtual representation niore easily pass over the Atlantic 
than pervade Wales, which lies in your neighborhood — or 
than Chester and Durham, surrounded by abundance of 
representation that is actual and palpable? But, Sir, your 
ancestors thought this sort of virtual representation, however 
ample, to be totally insufficient for the freedom of the in- 
habitants of territories that are so near, and comparatively so 
inconsiderable. How then can I think it sufficient for those 
whi^ are infinitely greater and infinitely more remote.^^^ 

sl. You will now, Sir, perhaps imagine that I am on the 
point of proposing to you a scheme for a representation of 
the Colonies in Parliament. Perhaps I might be inclined to 
entertain some such thought ; but a great flood ^^^ stops 
me in my course. Opposuit natura}^^ — I cannot remove the 
eternal barriers of the creation. The thing, in that mode, I 
do not know to be possible. As I meddle with no theory, 
I do not absolutely assert the impracticability of such a 
representation ; but I do not see my way to it, and those who 
have been more confident have not been more successful.^^^ 
However, the arm of public benevolence is not shortened, and 
there are often several means to the same end. What nature 
has disjoined in one way, wisdom may unite in another. 
When we cannot give the benefit as we would wish, let 
us not refuse it altogether. If we cannot give the prin- 
cipal, let us find a substitute. But how? Where? 
What substitute? ^^2 

/ 1^.' Fortunately I am not obliged for the ways and means 
of this substitute, to tax my own unproductive invention. 
I am not even obliged to go to the rich treasury of the fertile 
framers of imaginary commonwealths — not to the Republic 

84 



speech on Conciliation with America 

of Plato, not to the Utopia of More, not to the Oceana of 
Harrington.^^^ It is before me — it is at my feet, 

And the rude swain 
Treads daily on it with his clouted shoon.^* 

I only wish you to recognize, for the theory, the ancient 
constitutional policy of this kingdom with regard to repre- 
sentation, as that policy has been declared in Acts of Parlia- 
ment; and, as to the practice, to return to that mode which 
a uniform experience has marked out to you as best, and in 
which you walked w^ith security, advantage, and honor, until 
thevea^ 1763.^^^ f .^:. ^ 

yV^^^Si My Resolutions therefore mean to establish the equity 
wd justice of a taxation of America by grant, and not by 
imposition; ^®® to mark the legal competency of the Colony 
Assemblies for the support of their government in peace, and 
for public aids in time of war; to acknowledge that this legal 
competency has had a dutiful and beneficial exercise; and 
that experience has shown the benefit of their grants, and the 
futility of Parliamentary taxation as a method of supply. 

89^ These solid truths compose six fundamental proposi- 
tions. There are three more Resolutions corollary ^^^ to 
these. If you admit the first set, you can hardly reject the 
others. But if you admit the first, I shall be far from solici- 
tous whether you accept or refuse the last. I think these 
six massive pillars will be of strength sufficient to support 
the temple of British concord. ^^^ I have no more doubt than 
I entertain of my existence that, if you admitted these, you 
would command an immediate peace, and, with but tolerable 
future management, a lasting obedience in America. I am 
not arrogant in this confident assurance. The propositions 
are all mere matters of fact, and if they are sucfi facts as 
draw irresistible conclusions even in the stating, this is the 
power of truth, and not any management of mine. 

ga. Sir, I shall open the whole plan to you, together with 
such observations on the motions as may tend to illustrate 

85 



speech on Conciliation with America 

them where they may want explanation. The first is a 
Resolution — 

That the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain in North 
America, consisting of fourteen ^®® separate Governments, and 
containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have 
not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any 
Knights(and Burgesses, or others,Jto represent them in the High 
( Court of) Parliament. 

|i|. This is a plain matter of fact, necessary to be laid 
down, and, excepting the description,- °^ it is laid down in 
the language of the Constitution; it is taken nearly ver- 
batim ^"^ from acts of Parliament. 

g% The second is like unto the first — 

That the^saidjColonies and Plantations have been liable to, 
and bounden by, several subsidies, payments,^rates) and taxes 
given and granted by Parliament, though the |said^ Colonies and 
Plantations have not their Knights and Burgesse^ in [the said 
High Court ofj Parliament, tof their own election,|to represent the 
condition of their country ; by lack whereof they (lave been often- 
times touched |ind grieved by subsidiesf given, granted, and 
assented to, in the said Court:| in a manner prejudicial to the 
commonwealth, kjuietness, restj^andipeace of the subjects inhab- 
iting within the same. ' 

gjCl* Is this description too hot, or too cold; too strong, 
or too weak? Does it arrogate too much to the supreme 
legislature? Does it lean too much to the claims of the 
people? If it runs into any of these errors, the fault is 
not mine. It is the language of your own ancient Acts 
of Parliament. 

Non meus hie sermo, sed quae prscepit Ofellus, 
Rusticus, abnormis sapiens.^"^ 

It is the genuine product of the ancient, rustic, manly, home- 
bred sense of this country. — I did not dare to rub off a 
particle of the venerable rust that rather adorns and pre- 
serves, than destroys, the metal.-^^ It would be a profana- 
tion to touch with a tool the stones which construct the 
sacred altar of peace. I would not violate with modern 

86 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

polish the ingenuous 2°* and noble roughness of these truly 
Constitutional materials. Above all things, I was resolved 
not to be guilty of tampering, the odious vice of restless 
and unstable minds. I put my foot in the tracks of our 
forefathers, where I can neither wander nor stumble.^*^^ 
Determining to fix articles of peace, I was resolved not to 
be v^ise beyond what was written; I was resolved to use 
nothing else than the form of sound words, to let others 
abound in their own sense, and carefully to abstain from all 
expressions of my own. What the law has said, I say. In 
all things else I am silent. I have no organ but for her 
words. This, if it be not ingenious, I am sure is safe. 

gL There are indeed v/ords expressive of grievance in this 
second Resolution, which those who are resolved always to 
be in the right ^^'^ will deny to contain matter of fact, as 
applied to the present case, although Parliament thought 
them true with regard to the counties of Chester and Dur- 
ham. They will deny that the Americans were ever " touched 
and grieved " with the taxes. If they consider nothing 
in taxes but their weight as pecuniary impositions, there 
might be some pretense for this denial; but men may be 
sorely touched and deeply grieved in their privileges, as 
well as in their purses. Men may lose little in property 
by the act which takes away all their freedom.^**^ When a 
man is robbed of a trifle on the highway, it is not the two- 
pence lost that constitutes the capital ^^^ outrage. This is 
not confined to privileges. Even ancient indulgences, with- 
drawn without offense on the part of those who enjoyed 
such favors, operate as grievances. But were the Americans 
then not touched and grieved by the taxes, in some measure, 
merely as taxes? If so, why were they almost all either 
wholly repealed, or exceedingly reduced? Were they not 
touched and grieved even by the regulating duties of the 
sixth of George the Second? Else, why were the duties first 
reduced to one third in 1764, and afterwards to a third of 
that third in the year 1766? Were they not touched and 

87 



speech on Conciliation with America 

grieved by the Stamp Act? I shall say they were, until that 
tax is revived. Were they not touched and grieved by the 
duties of 1767, which were likewise repealed, and which 
Lord Hillsborough tells you, for the Ministry, were laid 
contrary to the true principle of commerce? Is not the 
assurance given by that noble person to the Colonies of a 
resolution to lay no more taxes on them an admission that 
taxes would touch and grieve them? Is not the Resolution 
of the noble lord in the blue ribbon, now standing on your 
Journals, the strongest of all proofs that Parliamentary subsi- 
dies really touched and grieved them? Else why all these 
changes, modifications, repeals, assurances, and resolutions? 
9|. The next proposition is — 

That, from the distance of thelsaid^Colomes,^nd from other 
circumstancesJno method hath hitherto oeen devisea for procuring 
a representation in Parliament/for the said Colonies. \ 

"1^ This is an assertion of a fact. I go no further on 
the paper, though, in my private judgment, a useful represen- 
tation is impossible — I am sure it is not desired by them, nor 
ought it perhaps by us — but I abstain from opinions. 

gf. The "fourth Resolution is — 

That .each of thd( saidV^olonies hath within itself a body, 
chosen in part, or in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders, or 
other free inhabitants thereof,] commonly called the General 
Assembly ,4 or General Court ;j with powers legally to raise, levy,, 
and assess,\according to the several usage of such^ Colonies,, dutie^ 
ancj taxesy^ towards defraying all sorts of public services. 

^. This competence ^^® in the Colony Assemblies is cer- 
tain. It is proved by the whole tenor of their Acts of Supply 
in all the Assemblies, in which the constant style of granting 
is, " an aid to his Majesty; " and Acts granting to the Crown 
have regularly for near a century passed the public offices -^^ 
without dispute. Those who have been pleased paradoxically 
to deny this right, holding that none but the British Parlia- 
ment can grant to the Crown, are wished to look to what is 

88 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

done, not only in the Colonies, but in Ireland, in one uniform 
unbroken tenor every session. Sir, I am surprised that this 
doctrine should come from some of the law servants of the 
Crown. I say that if the Crown could be responsible, His 
Majesty — but certainly the Ministers, — and even these law 
officers themselves through whose hands the Acts passed, bien- 
nially in Ireland, or annually in the Colonies — are in an 
habitual course of committing impeachable offenses. What 
habitual offenders have been all Presidents of the Council, 
all Secretaries of State, all First Lords of Trade, all Attor- 
neys, and all Solicitors General! However, they are safe, as 
no one impeaches them; and there is no ground of charge 
against them except in their own unfounded theories, 
gg. The fifth resolution is also a resolution of fact— ^ 

That the(^saidjGeneralJ Assemblies! General Courts] or other 
bodies legally qualified as 4f oresaidj have at sundry times freely 
granted several large subsidies andT)ublic aids for his Majesty's 
service, according to their abilities, when required thereto by 
letter from one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State; 
and that their right to grant the same(and their cheerfulness and 
sufficiency in the said grants, have been at sundry times acknowl- 
edged by Parliament. i 

1f«ou To say nothing of their great expenses in the Indian 
wars, and not to take their exertion in foreign ones so 
high^^^ as the supplies in the year 1695 — ^ot to go back 
to their public contributions in the year 17 10 — rl shall begin 
to travel only where the journals give me light, resolving to 
deal in nothing but fact, authenticated by Parliamentary 
record, and to build myself wholly on that solid basis. 

loi. On the 4th of April, 1748, a committee of this House 
came to the following resolution: 

Resolved : That it is the opinion of this Committee that it Is 
just and*- reasonable that the several Provinces and Colonies of 
Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode 
Island, be reimbursed the expenses they have been at in taking and 
securing to the Crown of Great Britain the Island of Cape Breton 
and its dependencies. 

89 



speech on Conciliation with America 

- f©fl«s. The expenses were immense for such Colonies. 
They were above £200,000 sterling; money first raised and 
advanced on their public credit. 

lo^-.'On the 28th of January, 1756, a message from the 
King came to us, to this effect: 

His Majesty, being sensible of the zeal and vigor with which 
his faithful subjects of certain Colonies in North America have 
exerted themselves in defense of his Majesty's just rights and 
possessions, recommends it to this House to take the same into 
their consideration, and to enable his Majesty to give them such 
assistance as may be a proper reward and encouragement. 

id|i. On the 3d of February, 1756, the House came to a 
suitable Resolution, expressed in words nearly the same as 
those of the message, but with the further addition, that 
the money then voted was as an encouragement to the 
Colonies to exert themselves with vigor. It will not be 
necessary to go through all the testimonies which your own 
records have given to the truth of my Resolutions. ) I will 
only refer you to the places in the Journals: 

Vol. xxvii. — i6th and 19th May, 1757. 

Vol. xxviii. — June ist, 1758; April 26th and 30th, 1759; March 
26th and 31st, and April 28th, 1760; Jan. 9th and 20th, 1761. 
Vol. xxix. — ^Jan. 22d and 26th, 1762, March 14th and 17th, 1763. 

log. Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment of Parlia- 
ment that the Colonies not only gave, but gave to satiety . ^^- 
This nation has formally acknowledged two things: first, 
that the Colonies had gone beyond their abilities, Parlia- 
ment having thought it necessary to reimburse them; sec- 
ondly, that they had acted legally and laudably in their 
grants of money, and their maintenance of troops, since the 
compensation is expressly given as reward and encourage- 
ment. Reward is not bestowed for acts that are unlawful; 
and encouragement is not held out to things that deserve 
reprehension. My Resolution therefore does nothing more 
than collect into one proposition what is scattered through 
your Journals. I give you nothing but your own; and you 

90 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

cannot refuse in the gross what you have so often acknowl- 
edged in detail. The admission of this, which will be so 
honorable to them and to you, will, indeed, be mortal to all 
the miserable stories by which the passions of the misguided 
people have been engaged in an unhappy system.^^^ The 
people heard, indeed, from the beginning of these disputes, 
one thing continually dinned in their ears, that reason and 
justice demanded that the Americans, who paid no taxes, 
should be compelled to contribute. How did that fact of 
their paying nothing stand when the taxing system began? 
When Mr. Grenville began to form his system of American 
revenue, he stated in this House that the Colonies were then 
in debt two millions six hundred thousand pounds sterling 
money, and was of opinion they would discharge that debt in 
four years. On this state,-^* those untaxed people were 
actually subject to the payment of taxes to the amount of 
six hundred and fifty thousand a year. In fact, however, Mr. 
Grenville was mistaken. The funds given for sinking the 
debt did not prove quite so ample as both the Colonies and 
he expected. The calculation was too sanguine; the reduc- 
tion was not completed till some years after, and at different 
times in different Colonies. However, the taxes after the 
war continued too great to bear any addition, with prudence 
or propriety; and, when the burthens imposed in consequence 
of former requisitions were discharged, our tone became too 
high to resort again to requisition. No Colony, since that 
time, ei?er has had any requisition whatsoever made to it. 

lo^ We see the sense of the Crown, and the sense of Par- 
liament, on the productive nature of a revenue by grant. 
Now search the same Journals for the produce of the revenue 
by imposition. Where is it? Let us know the volume and 
the page. What is the gross, what is the net produce? To 
what service is it applied? How have you appropriated its 
surplus? What! Can none of the many skilful index- 
makers that we are now employing find any trace of it? — 
Well, let them and that rest together. But are the Journals, 

91 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

which say nothing of the revenue, as silent on the discontent? 
Oh, no! a child may find it. It is the melancholy burthen 
and blot of every page.-^^ 

la^. I think, then, I am, from those Journals, justified in 
the sixth and last Resolution, which is — 

That it hath been found by experience that the manner of 
granting the said supplies and aids, by the said General AssembHes, 
hath been more agreeable to the said Colonies, and more beneficial 
and conducive to the public service, than the mode of giving and 
granting aids in Parliament, to be raised and paid in the 
said Colonies. 

ID'S. This makes the whole of the fundamental part of 
the plan. The conclusion is irresistible. You cannot say 
that you were driven by any necessity to an exercise of the 
utmost rights of legislature. You cannot assert that you 
took on yourselves the task of imposing Colony taxes from 
the want of another legal body that is competent to the 
purpose of supplying the exigencies ^^^ of the state without 
wounding the prejudices of the people. Neither is it true 
that the body so qualified, and having that competence, 
had neglected the duty. 

i^. The question now, on all this accumulated matter, 
is: whether you will choose to abide by a profitable experi- 
ence, or a mischievous theory; whether you choose to build 
on imagination, or fact; whether you prefer enjoyment, or 
hope; satisfaction in your subjects, or discontent? 
I a^ J4m If these propositions are accepted, everything which 
has been made to enforce a contrary system must, I take 
it for granted, fall along with it. On that ground, I have 
drawn the following Resolution, which, when it comes to be 
moved, will naturally be divided in a proper manner: 

That it may be proper to repeal an Act made in the seventh 
year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, An Act for 
granting certain duties in the British Colonies and Plantations 
in America ; for allowing a drawback "" of the duties of customs 
upon the exportation from this Kingdom of coffee and cocoa- 
nuts of the produce of the said Colonies or Plantations ; for dis- 

92 * 



speech on Conciliation with America 

continuing the drawbacks payable on china earthenware exported 
to America; and for more effectually preventing the clandestine 
running of goods'^* in the said Colonies and Plantations. And 
that it may be proper td repeal an Act made in thei fourteenth 
year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, An Act to dis- 
continue, in^uch manner and for such time as are therein men- 
tioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping of goods, 
wares, and merchandise at the town and within the harbor of 
Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America. 
And that it may be proper to repeal an Act made in the fourteenth 
year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled. An Act for 
the impartial administration of justice in the cases of persons 
questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the law, 
or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the Province of 
Massachusetts Bay, in New England. And that it may be proper 
to repeal an Act made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his 
present Majesty, entitled, An Act for the better regulating of the 
Government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New 
England. And also that it may be proper to explain and amend 
an Act made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry 
the Eighth, entitled, An Act for the Trial of Treasons committed 
out of the King's Dominions. 

iii; I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill,^^^ be- 
cause — independently of the dangerous precedent of suspend- 
ing the rights of the subject during the King's pleasure — it 
was passed, as I apprehend, with less regularity and on more 
partial ^-° principles than it ought. The corporation of Bos- 
ton was not heard before it was condemned. Other towns, 
full as guilty as she was, have not had their ports blocked up. 
Even the Restraining Bill of the present session does not 
go to the length of the Boston Port Act. The same ideas 
of prudence which induced you not to extend equal punish- 
ment to equal guilt, even when you were punishing, induced 
me, who mean not to chastise, but to reconcile, to be satisfied 
with the punishment already partially inflicted. 

ii|. Ideas of prudence and accommodation to circum- 
stances prevent you from taking away the charters of Con- 
necticut and Rhode Island, as you have taken away that of 
Massachusetts Bay, though the Crown has far less power 
in the two former provinces than it enjoyed in the latter, 

93 



speech on Conciliation with America 

and though the abuses have been full as great, and as fla- 
grant,-^^ in the exempted as in the punished. The same 
reasons of prudence and accommodation have weight with 
me in restoring the Charter of Massachusetts Bay. Besides, 
Sir, the Act which changes the charter of Massachusetts is 
in many particulars so exceptionable ^^^ that if I did not 
wish absolutely to repeal, I would by all means desire to alter 
it, as several of its provisions tend to the subversion of all 
public and private justice. Such, among others, is the power 
in the Governor to change the sheriff at his pleasure, and 
to make a new returning officer for every special cause.^^^ 
It is shameful to behold such a regulation standing among 
English laws. 

I ip. The Act for bringing persons accused of committing 
murder, under the orders of Government to England for 
trial, is but temporary. That Act has calculated the prob- 
able duration of our quarrel with the Colonies, and is accom- 
modated to that supposed duration. I would hasten the 
happy moment of reconciliation, and therefore must, on my 
principle, get rid of that most justly obnoxious Act.^^'* 

iijj. The Act of Henry the Eighth, for the Trial of Trea- 
sons, I do not mean to take away, but to confine it to its 
proper bounds and original intention; to make it expressly 
for trial of treasons — and the greatest treasons may be com- 
mitted in places where the jurisdiction of the Crown does 
not extend. 

I r^^ Having guarded the privileges of local legislature, I 
would next secure to the Colonies a fair and unbiased 
judicature, for which purpose, Sir, I propose the follow- 
ing Resolution: 

That, from the time when the General Assembly or General, 
Court of any Colony or Plantation in North America shall have 
appointed by Act of Assembly, duly confirmed, a settled salary 
to the offices of the Chief Justice and other Judges of the Superior 
Court, it may be proper that the said Chief Justice and other 
Judges of the Superior Courts of such Colony shall hold his and 
their office and offices during their good behavior, and shall not 

94 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

be removed therefrom but when the said removal shall be adjudged 
by his Majesty in Council, upon a hearing on complaint from the 
General Assembly, or on a complaint from the Governor, or Coun- 
cil, or the House of Representatives severally, or of the Colony 
in which the said Chief Justice and other Judges have exercised 
the said offices.^** 

1 1§. The next Resolution relates to the Courts of Admi- 
ralty. It is this: 

That It may be proper to regulate the Courts of Admiralty or 
Vice-Admiralty authorized by the fifteenth Chapter of the Fourth 
of George the Third, in such a manner as to make the same more 
commodious ^® to those who sue, or are sued, in the said Courts, 
and to provide for the more decent maintenance of the Judges 
in the same. 

ii|> These courts I do not wish to take away; they are in 
themselves proper establishments. This court is one of the 
capital securities of the Act of Navigation. The extent of 
its jurisdiction, indeed, has been increased, but this is alto- 
gether as proper, and is indeed on many accounts more eli- 
gible, where new pov^^ers were wanted, than a court absolutely 
new. But courts incommodiously situated, in effect, deny 
justice; and a court partaking in the fruits of its own con- 
demnation is a robber.^-^ The Congress complain, and 
complain justly, of this grievance. 

I if. These are the three consequential propositions. I 
have thought of two or three more, but they come rather 
too near detail, and to the province of executive ^-^ govern- 
ment, which I wish Parliament always to superintend, never 
to assume. If the first six are granted, congruity will carry 
the latter three. If not, the things that remain unrepealed 
will be, I hope, rather unseemly incumbrances on the building, 
than very materially detrimental to its strength and stability. 

113^, Here, Sir, I should close; but I plainly perceive 
some objections remain which I ought, if possible, to remove. 
The first will be that, in resorting to the doctrine of our 
ancestors, as contained in the preamble to the Chester Act, 
I prove too much; that the grievance from a want of repre- 

95 



speech on Conciliation with America 

sentation, stated in that preamble, goes to the whole of legis- 
lation as well as to taxation^ and that the Colonies, grounding 
themselves upon that doctrine, will apply it to all parts of 
legislative authority. 
{ ) ^ «SR»8w To this objection, with all possible deference and 
' humility, and wishing as little as any man living to impair 
the smallest particle of our supreme authority, I answer/' 
^that the words are the. words of Parliament, -andjpiQt, niine, 
and that all false and inconclusive inferences drawn from 
them are not mine, for I heartily disclaim any such inference. 
I have chosen the words of an Act of Parliament which 
Mr. Grenville, surely a tolerably zealous and very judicious 
advocate for the sovereignty of Parliament, formerly moved to 
have read at your table in confirmation of his tenets. It is 
true that Lord Chatham considered these preambles as de- 
claring strongly in favor of his opinions. He was a no less 
powerful advocate for the privileges of the Americans. Ought 
I not from hence to presume that these preambles are as 
favorable as possible to both,^^^ when properly understood; 
favorable both to the rights of Parliament, and to the privi- 
lege of the dependencies of this Crown?"; But, Sir, the object 
of grievance in my Resolution I have not taken from the 
Chester, but from the Durham Act, which confines the hard- 
ship of want of representation to the case of subsidies, and 
which therefore falls in exactly with the case of the Colonies. 
But whether the unrepresented counties were de jure or de 
facto '^^ bound, the preambles do not accurately distinguish, 
nor indeed was it necessary; for, whether de jure or de facto, 
the Legislature thought the exercise of the power of taxing as 
of right, or as of fact without right, equally a grievance, and 
equally oppressive.^^^ 

,i23p I do not know that the Colonies have, in any general 
way, or in any cool hour, gone much beyond the demand 
of immunity in relation to taxes. It is not fair to judge of 
the temper or dispositions of any man, or any set of men, 
when they are composed and at rest, from their conduct or 

96 



speech on Conciliation with America 

their expressions in a state of disturbance and irritation. 
It is besides a very great mistake to imagine that mai^ind 
"follow up practically any speculative princijgje, either of 
government or of freedom, as far as it will go in argument 
and logical illation.-^- 'We Englishmen stop very short of 
the principles upon which^We support any given part of our 
Constitution, or even the whole of it together. I could easily, 
if I had not already tired you, give you very striking and 
convincing instances of it. This is nothing but what is 
natural and proper. All government, indeed every human 
benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, 
is founded on compromise and barter. We balance incon- 
veniences; we give and take; we remit some rights, that we 
may enjoy others ; and we choose rather to be happy citizens 
than subtle disputants. As we must give away some natural 
liberty to enjoy civil advantages,^ ^''^ so we must sacrifice some 
civil liberties for the advantages to be derived from the 
communion and fellowship of a great empire. But, in all fair 
dealings, the thing bought must bear some proportion to the 
purchase paid. None will barter away the immediate jewel 
of his soul. Though a great house is apt to make slaves 
haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the artificial importance 
of a great empire too dear to pay for it all essential rights 
and all the intrinsic dignity of human nature. None of us 
who would not risk his life rather than fall under a govern- 
ment purely arbitrary. But although there are some amongst 
us who think our Constitution wants many improvements to 
make it a complete system of liberty, perhaps none who are 
of that opinion would think it right to aim at such improve- 
ment by disturbing his country, and risking everything that is 
dear to him. In every arduous enterprise we consider what 
we are to lose, as well what we are to gain; and the more and 
better stake of liberty every people possess, the less they 
will hazard in a vain attempt to make it more. These are 
the cords ^^* of man, Man acts from adequate motives rela- 
tive to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations.^"*^ 
. 7 97 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

Aristotle,^^*' the great master of reasoning, cautions us, and 
with great weight and propriety, against this species of de- 
lusive geometrical accuracy in moral arguments as the most 
fallacious of all sophistry.,-" 

122. The Americans will have no interest contrary to the 
grandeur and glory of England,-^^^ when they are not op- 
pressed by the weight of it; and they will rather be inclined 
to respect the acts of a superintending legislature when 
they see them the acts of that power which is itself the 
security, not the rival, of their secondary importance. In 
this assurance my mind most perfectly acquiesces, and I 
confess I feel not the least alarm from the discontents which 
are to rise from putting people at their ease, nor do I appre- 
hend the destruction of this Empire from giving, by an act 
of free grace and indulgence, to two millions of my fellow- 
citizens some share of those rights upon which I have always 
been taught to value myself. 

123. It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, vested 
in American Assemblies, would dissolve the unity of the 
Empire, which was preserved entire, although Wales, and 
Chester, and Durham were added to it. Truly, Mr. Speaker, 
I do not know what this unity means, nor has it ever been 
heard of, that I know, in the constitutional policy of this 
country. The very idea of subordination of parts excludes 
this notion of simple and undivided unity. England is the 
head; but she is not the head and the members too. Ireland 
has ever had from the beginning a separate, but not an 
independent, legislature, which, far from distracting, pro- 
moted the union of the whole.-^^ Everything was sweetly 
and harmoniously disposed through both islands for the con- 
servation of English dominion, and the communication of ' 
English liberties. I do not see that the same principles might 
not be carried into twenty islands and with the same good 
effect .^*° This is my model with regard to America, as far 
as the internal circumstances of the two countries are the 
same. I know no other unity of this Empire than I can 

98 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

draw from its example during these periods, when it seemed 
to my poor understanding more united than it is now, or 
than it is Hkely to be by the present methods. 

124. But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, Mr. 
Speaker, almost too late, that I promised, before I finished, 
to say something of the proposition of the noble lord on the 
floor, which has been so lately received and stands on your 
Journals.^*^ I must be deeply concerned whenever it is my 
misfortune to continue a difference with the majority of this 
House; but, as the reasons for that difference are my apology 
for thus troubling you, suffer me to state them in a very few 
words. I shall compress them into as small a body as I 
possibly can, having already debated that matter at large 
when the question was before the Committee. 

125. First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a 
ransom by auction; because it is a mere project. It is a 
thing new, unheard of; supported by no experience; justified 
by no analogy; without example of our ancestors, or root in 
the Constitution. It is neither regular Parliamentary taxa- 
tion, nor Colony grant. Experimentum in corpore vili^^^ 
is a good rule, which will ever make me adverse to any trial 
of experiments on what is certainly the most valuable of all 
subjects, the peace of this Empire. 

126. Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in 
the end to our Constitution. For what is it but a scheme 
for taxing the Colonies in the ante-chamber of the noble 
lord and his successors? To settle the quotas and propor- 
tions in this House is clearly impossible.^^^ You, Sir, may 
flatter yourself you shall sit a state auctioneer, with your 
hammer in your hand, and knock down to each Colony as 
it bids. But to settle, on the plan laid down by the noble 
lord, the true proportional payment for four or five and 
twenty governments according to the absolute and the relative 
wealth of each, and according to the British proportion of 
wealth and burthen, is a wild and chimerical -^^ notion. This 
new taxation must therefore come in by the back door of the 

09 \ 

V 



speech on Conciliation with America 

Constitution. Each quota must be brought to this House 
ready formed; you can neither add nor alter. You must 
register it. You can do nothing further; for on what grounds 
can you deUberate either before or after the proposition? 
You cannot hear the counsel for all these provinces, quarrel- 
ling each on its own quantity of payment, and its proportion 
to others. If you should attempt it, the Committee of 
Provincial Ways and Means, or by whatever other name it 
will delight to be called, must swallow up all the time 
of Parliament.2^^ 

127. Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the com- 
plaint of the Colonies. They complain that they are taxed 
without their consent; you answer, that you will fix the 
sum at which they shall be taxed. That is, you give them 
the very grievance for the remedy. You tell them, indeed, 
that you will leave the mode to themselves. I really beg 
pardon — it gives me pain to mention it — but you must be 
sensible that you will not perform this part of the compact. 
For, suppose the Colonies were to lay the duties, which 
furnished their contingent, upon the importation of your 
manufacturers, you know you would never suffer such a tax 
to be laid. You know, too, that you would not suffer many 
other modes of taxation; so that, when you come to explain 
yourself, it will be found that you will neither leave to them- 
selves the quantum ^^^ nor the mode, nor indeed anything. 
The whole is delusion from one end to the other. 

128. Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction, unless 
it be universally ^*^ accepted, will plunge you into great and 
inextricable difficulties. In what year of our Lord are the 
proportions of payments to be settled? To say nothing of 
the impossibility that Colony agents should have general 
powers of taxing the Colonies at their discretion, consider, 
I implore you, that the communication by special messages 
and orders between these agents and their constituents, on 
each variation of the case, when the parties come to contend 
together and to dispute on their relative proportions, will 

100 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

be a matter of delay, perplexity, and confusion that never 
can have an end. 

129. If all the Colonies do not appear at the outcry,^** 
what is the condition of those assemblies who offer, by them- 
selves or their agents, to tax themselves up to your ideas 
of their proportion? The refractory Colonies who refuse 
all composition ^*^ will remain taxed only to your old impo- 
sitions, which, however grievious in principle, are trifling as 
to production. The obedient Colonies in this scheme are 
heavily taxed; the refractory remain unburdened. What 
will you do? Will you lay new and heavier taxes by Parlia- 
ment on the disobedient? Pray consider in what way you can 
do it. You are perfectly convinced that, in the way of taxing, 
you can do nothing but at the ports.^^** Now suppose it is 
Virginia that refuses to appear at your auction, while Mary- 
land and North Carolina bid handsomely for their ransom, 
and are taxed to your quota, how will you put these Colonies 
on a par? Will you tax the tobacco of Virginia? If you do, 
you give its death-wound to your English revenue at home, 
and to one of the very greatest articles of your own foreign 
trade. If you tax the import of that rebellious Colony, what 
do you tax but your own manufactures, or the goods of some 
other obedient and already well-taxed Colony? Who has 
said one word on this labyrinth ^^^ of detail, which bewilders 
you more and more as you enter into it? Who has presented, 
who can present you with a clue to lead you out of it? I 
think. Sir, it is impossible that you should not recollect that 
the Colony bounds are so implicated ^^^ in one another — you 
know it by your other experiments in the bill for prohibiting 
the New England fishery, — that you can lay no possible 
restraints on almost any of them which may not be pres- 
ently ^^^ eluded, if you do not confound the innocent with 
the guilty, and burthen those whom, upon every principle, you 
ought to exonerate.-"* He must be grossly ignorant of Amer- 
ica who thinks that, without falling into this confusion of 
all rules of equity and policy, you can restrain any single 

lOI 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

Colony, especially Virginia and Maryland, the central and 
most important of them all. 

130. Let it also be considered that, either in the present 
confusion you settle a permanent contingent, which will and 
must be trifling, and then you have no effectual revenue; or 
you change the quota at every ^jgency^ and then on every 
new repartition you will have a new quarrel. 

131. Reflect, besides, that when you have fixed a quota 
for every Colony, you have not provided for prompt and 
punctual payment. Suppose one, two, five, ten years' ar- 
rears. You cannot issue a Treasury Extent -^^ against the 
failing Colony. You must make new Boston Port Bills, 
new restraining laws, new acts for dragging men to England 
for trial. You must send out new fleets, new armies. All 
is to begin again. From this day forward the Empire is 
never to know an hour's tranquillity. An intestine fire will 
be kept alive in the bowels of the Colonies, which one time or 
other must consume this whole Empire. I allow indeed that 
the empire of Germany raises her revenue and her troops by 
quotas and contingents; but the revenue of the empire, and 
the army of the empire, is the worst revenue and the worst 
army in the world.^^^ 

yf^Ir^nstead of a standing revenue, you will therefore 
have-aTperpetual quarrel. Indeed, the noble lord who pro- 
posed this project of a ransom by auction seems himself 
to be of that opinion. His project was rather designed for 
breaking the union of the Colonies than for establishing a 
revenue. He confessed he apprehended that his proposal 
would not be to their taste. I say this scheme of disunion 
seems to be at the bottom of the project ; for I will not suspect 
that the noble lord meant nothing but merely to delude the 
nation by an airy phantom which he never intended to 
realize. But whatever his views may be, as I propose the 
peace and union of the Colonies as the very foundation of 
my plan, it cannot accord with one whose foundation is 
perpetual discord. 

102 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

--*33^ Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain 
and simple. The other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. 
This is mild; that, harsh. This is found by experience effec- 
tual for its purposes; the other is a new project. This isv q 
universal ; the other calculated for certain Colonies only. \f 
This is immediate in its conciliatory operation; the other 5s^ 
remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes 
the dignity of a ruling people — gratuitous, unconditional, and^^ 
not held out as a matter of bargain and sale. I have done my 
duty in proposing it to you. I have indeed tired you by a^ 
long discourse; but this is the misfortune of those to whose 
influence nothing v/ill be conceded, and who must win every 
inch of their ground by argument. You have heard me with 
goodness. May you decide with wisdom! For my part, 
I feel my mind greatly disburthened by what I have done 
to-day. I have been the less fearful of trying your patience, 
because on this subject I mean to spare it altogether in future. 
I have this comfort, that in every stage of the American 
affairs I have steadily opposed the measures that have pro- 
duced the confusion, and may bring on the destruction, of 
this Empire. I now go so far as to risk a proposal of my 
own. If I cannot give peace to my country, I give it to 
my conscience. 

13^. But what, says the financier, is peace to us without 
money? Your plan gives us no revenue. No! ^ut it does; 
for it secures to the subject the power of .refi,i^, the first 
of all revenues.'^'^ Experience is a cheat, and fact a liar, if 
this power in the subject of proportioning his grant, or of 
not granting at all, has not been found the richest mine of 
revenue ever discovered by the skill or by the fortune of man. 
It does not indeed vote you 152,750/. 115. 2%d., nor any 
other paltry limited sum; but it gives the strong box itself, 
the fund, the bank — from whence only revenues can arise 
amongst a people sensible of freedom. Posita luditur arcar^^ 
Cannot you, in England — cannot you, at this time of day — 
cannot you, a House of Commons, trust to the principle which 

103 



speech on Conciliation with America 

has raised so mighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt of 
nearly 140,000,00 in this country? Is this principle to be 
true in England, and false everywhere else? Is it not true in 
Ireland? Has it not hitherto been true in the Colonies? Why 
should you presume that, in any country, a body duly con- 
stituted for any function will neglect to perform its duty and 
abdicate its trust? Such a presumption would go against 
all governments in all modes. But, in truth, this dread of 
penury of supply from a free assembly has no foundation in 
nature; for first, observe that, besides the desire which all 
men have naturally of supporting the honor of their own 
government, that sense of dignity and that security to prop- 
erty which ever attends freedom has a tendency to increase 
the stock of the free community. Most may be taken where 
most is accumulated. And what is the soil or climate where 
experience has not uniformly proved that the voluntary flow 
of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of its own rich 
luxuriance, has ever run with a more copious stream of reve- 
nue than could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed 
indigence by the straining of all the politic machinery in 
the world? 

i3i^ Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a free 
country. We know, too, that the emulations of such parties 
— their contradictions, their reciprocal necessities, their hopes, 
and their fears — must send them all in their turns to him 
that holds the balance of the State. The parties are the 
gamesters; but Government keeps the table, and is sure to 
be the winner in the end. When this game is played, I really 
think it is more to be feared that the people will be ex- 
hausted, than that government will not be supplied ; whereas, 
whatever is got by acts of absolute power ill obeyed, because 
odious, or by contracts ill kept, because constrained, will be 
narrow, feeble, uncertain, and precarious. 

Ease would retract 
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.** 
X04 



speech on Conciliation with America 

1^4- I, for one protest against compounding ^^^ our de- 
mands. I declare against compounding for a poor limited 
sum, the immense, ever-growing, eternal debt which is due to 
generous government from protected freedom. And so may 
I speed in the great object I propose to you, as I think it 
would not only be an act of injustice, but would be the worst 
economy in the world, to compel the Colonies to a sum 
certain, either in the way of ransom or in the way of com- 
pulsory compact. 

i3(^ But to clear up my ideas on this subject: a revenue 
from America transmitted hither — do not delude yourselves — 
you never can receive it; no, not a shilling. We have experi- 
ence that from remote countries it is not to be expected. 
If, when you attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you 
were obliged to return in loan what you had taken in imposi- 
tion, what can you expect from North America? For cer- 
tainly, if ever there was a country qualified to produce wealth, 
it is India; or an institution fit for the transmission, it is the 
East India Company. America has none of these apti- 
tudes.^^^ If America gives you taxable objects on which you 
lay your duties here, and gives you, at the same time, a sur- 
plus by a foreign sale of her commodities to pay the duties 
on these objects which you tax at home, she has performed 
her part to the British revenue. But with regard to her 
own internal establishments, she may, I doubt not she will, 
contribute in moderation. I say in moderation, for she 
ought not to be permitted to exhaust herself. She ought to 
be reserved to a war, the weight of which, with the enemies 
that we are most likely to have,-^^ must be considerable in 
her quarter of the globe. There she may serve you, and 
|, serve you essentially. 

\ 13^. For that service — for all service, whether of revenue, 
' trade, or empire — my trust is in her interest in the British 
Constitution. My hold of the Colonies is in the close affec- 
tion which grows from common names, from kindred blood, 
from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties 

105 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let 
the Colonists always keep the idea of their civil rights asso- 
ciated with your government, — they will cling and grapple to 
you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them 
from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that 
your government may be one thing, and their privileges 
another, that these two things may exist without any mutual 
relation, the cement is gone — the cohesion is loosened — and 
everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as 
you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this 
country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple conse- 
crated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and 
sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces 
towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you 
will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more 
perfect will be their obedience.^"^ Slavery they can have 
anywhere — it is a weed ^®* that grows in every soil. They 
may have it from Spain; they may have it from Prussia.-*^^ 
But until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest 
and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none 
but you. This is the commodity of price ^^^ of which you 
have the monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation 
which binds to you the commerce of the Colonies, and through 
them secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny them 
this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond 
which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of 
the Empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as 
that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your 
sufferances, your cockets'^^ and your clearances, are what 
form the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream 
that your letters of office, and your instructions, and your 
suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the 
great contexture of the mysterious whole. These things do 
not make your government. Dead instruments, passive 
tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English communion 
that gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit 

io6 



speech on Conciliation with America 

of the English Constitution which, infused through the mighty 
mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part 
of the Empire, even down to the minutest member. 

13J. Is it not the same virtue which does everything for 
us here in England? Do you imagine, then, that it is the 
Land Tax Act which raises your revenue? that it is the 
annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you 
your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it 
with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It is the love 
of the people; it is their attachment to their government, 
from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious 
institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and 
infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your 
army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but 
rotten timber. ^ :^-^ * 

ij^. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and 
chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical 
politicians who have no place among us; a sort of people 
who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, 
and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors 
of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel 
in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, 
these ruling and master principles which, in the opinion of 
such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, 
are in truth everything, and all in all. ; Magnanimity in 
politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire 
and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our 
station, and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our 
situation and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public 
proceedings on America with the old warning of the church, 
Sursum cordaf^^^ We ought to elevate our minds to the 
greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has 
called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling 
our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious 
empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honor- 
able conquests — not by destroying, but by promoting the 

107 



Speech on Conciliation with America 

wealth, the numberj the happiness, of the human race. Let 
us get an American revenue as we have got an American 
empire. English privileges have made it all that it is; English 
privileges alone will make it all it can be. 

14O In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now, 
quod felix faustumque sit,^^^ lay the first stone of the Temple 
of Peace; and I move you — 

That the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain in North 
America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and con- 
taining two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not 
had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any Knights 
and Burgesses, or others, to represent them in the High Court 
of Parliament.*'" 



NOTES AND QUERIES 



* Sir, Burke addresses the Speaker of the House. 
^Austerity. From Latin Auster, the "west Vi^ind." Hence, 

" severe dignity." 
'Human Frailty. Can you find an antithesis in this sentence? 

* Depending. Hanging. Hence, " undecided." 

' Event. Outcome. From the Latin ex, " out of " and venio, 
"come." 

"Grand Penal Bill. A bill forbidding Massachusetts, New- 
Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to trade with any' 
country except England and abolishing their right to fish on 
the Banks of Newfoundland. On Marcb-S it passed 215 
to 61. C i. /i> 

' Other House. What body is alluded to ? 

® Coercion and Restraint. To coerce means to force a person 
to act. To restrain means to keep a person from acting. 
Wliat figure of speech ? 

® Awful. Burke uses the word here in its exact sense, calculated 
to inspire awe. 

^° When did Burke first sit in the House of Commons? 

" Was Burke a well-informed man? Look for the answer to this 
question in the introduction. 

"Fluctuation. From the Latin Huctus, "wave." This word 
therefore contains a metaphor. Burke compares the Ameri- 
can situation to a sea. Find two other words which continue 
this metaphor. 

" Point out a figure of speech in this sentence. 

" In this sentence Burke diplomatically contrasts his own fine 
adherence to principle with the weak and selfish conduct 
of Parliament. 

^^ What comparison is implied by the use of the words " com- 
plaint" and "distemper"? 

^^The student will realize the condition of America to which 
Burke alludes if he will remember that this speech was 
delivered March 22, 1775, and that the battle of Lexington 
was fought April 19, 1775. (See Life of Burke, pp. 17-20.) 

" A Worthy Member. Burke refers to Mr. Rose Fuller. 

** Our. Burke means the methods of the Whig party. 

'^ Long and Unsuccessful Opposition. The Whigs had been in 
opposition, that is, in the minority, nine years. 
109 



Notes and Queries 



^ MiNiSTERiAi, Measures-: The measures of the Tory majority. 

"VFind an antithesis in this sentence. 

^ Point out the metaphor. 

** Parliamentary Form. Burke means that he made the rough 

outline of the " Speech on Conciliation " in a form suitable 

for delivery in Parliament. 
"* Argues. Indicates. 

^ Seat of Authority. An official position. 
^ Disreputably. With loss of reputation. 
" Paper Government. Theoretical government. Hatred of 

theory was one of Burke's most noteworthy characteristics. 
^'Almost every paragraph in this speech contains one or more 

sentences which have become political maxims. There are 

two in this paragraph. Try to decide which they are and do 

the same for each succeeding paragraph. 
^^ Point out the antithesis in this sentence. 
^* Point out the figure of speech. 

^^ Destitute of All Shadow of Influence. Burke had no in- 
fluence with the ministers of George III, because he acted 

from principle while they were bought. 
^^ Fomented. Kindled. From the Latin, fomes, "kindling." 
®^ Juridical. Legal. 
^ This sentence is an artful description of Lord North's so-called 

scheme of conciliation,Which he had previously introduced 

into the House. ^ 

^ Notice how often in this paragraph Burke repeats the word 

peace. 
^* Refined. Tricky. 
^^ Noble Lord in the Blue Ribbon. Lord North. North was a 

younger son, and hence could not sit in the House of Lords. 
^ Lord North's scheme was to remit the duties of those colonies 

who agreed to vote money for the common defens^e and the 

civil government. It was introduced February r^ 177 S- 
"^ In what respects did Burke's scheme differ from Lord North's ? 

In what respect were the two schemes alike ? 
** Capital means fundamental. 
" Exceptionable. Open to exception or criticism. 
^ I Make No Difficulty. I do not hesitate or argue against. 
*^ Others. Slaves. 
^ Note the fine antithesis. 
^'In this sentence we have another description of Lord North's 

plan for conciliation. 
^ Minima. Trifles or non-essentials. 
"•^WiTH Impunity. Without punishment. 



Notes and Queries 

**A Distinguished Person. Burke refers to Richard Glover 
(1712-1785). Glover was at once a merchant prince, a 
publicist, and a poet — Marshall Field, Elihu Root, and 
Alfred Noyes rolled into one. His chief poems are 
Leonidas, an epic, and Admiral Hosier's Ghost, a ballad. 
(See Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature.) 

^ Erudition. Learning. 

^ State. Statement. 

^^ What was the entire amount of the export of England in 1704? 
In 1772? What was the amount of the colony trade in 
1704? In 1772? How did the colony trade in 1772 compare 
with the whole trade in 1704? 

" Note the antithesis between the past and the present on the one 
hand, and the future on the other. 

"^ Acta parentum iam legere . . . virtus. He was already old 
enough to read the deeds of his parents and to understand 
what virtue is. 

" Auspicious. Promising. 

^^ Fourth Generation. George I., the first Prince of the House 
of Brunswick, reigned 1714-1728; George II., the second, 
1728-1760; George III., the third, 1760-1820. George III. 
was the grandson of George II. 

** Turn Back the Current of Hereditary Dignity to its Foun- 
tain. The son of Lord Bathurst got his father raised 
from the rank of Baron to that of Earl. 

■" Note the contrast which Burke draws between the growth of 
America and England, What would he say if he were now 
alive ? 

'^ Sanguine. Hopeful. Sanguine comes from Latin sanguis, 
*' blood." To be full of red blood, as we say to-day, is 
to be hopeful. Sanguinary means bloody and has reference 
to the spilling of blood. 

"^ Note the contrast in the last two sentences. Note also the 
contrast between the preceding burst of eloquence and the 
cold commercial figures which Burke gave before and to 
which he now returns. 

*° Curious. Worthy of careful inquiry. 

"^ Could there be a finer description of what America did for 
England in the war from 1914-1918? 

^ Antipodes. From the Greek anti, " against," and podes, ** feet." 
Note the antithesis. 

^^ Falkland Islands. Are the Falkland Islands connected with 
any event in the great war of 1914-1918? 

" Note the antithesis. 

Ill 



Notes and Queries 

"In other words, the American whale fishery covers the whole 
Atlantic, north, south, east, and west. 

^'It is nearly a century and a half since Burke wrote this para- 
graph, but probably no more generous or accurate tribute 
has since been paid to the American character. 

•"Gross is contrasted with detail. 

** Gentlemen means members of the house. 

*• Complexions. Temperament. 

'* Military Art. This phrase may refer to General Burgoyne, 
who later surrendered at Saratoga, but who at this time 
was a member of the House of Commons. 

" The reader will observe that Burke's remarks about force have 
been confirmed by the experience of Germany 1914-1918. 

'* The first consideration is the population of America ; the second 
its commerce. 

"A Love of Freedom. Is this still a predommating mark that 
distinguishes the Americans? 

'* Restive. Restless. 

'* Chicane. Trickery. 

"Burke alludes to the period between 1620 and 1640. During 
this period many Englishmen went to America to escape the 
tyranny of the Stuart kings. 

■" Liberty is embodied in some definite form. 

" Blind Usages. Customs of which the origin is unknown. 

^ Mediately. Indirectly. 

*" Upon what questions did contests for liberty turn in Greece and 
Rome; in England? 

" It is not easy to make a rule that will not work both ways. In 
other words, the principles that apply in England apply 
equally well in America. 

^ Merely Popular. An allusion to the New England town meet- 
ings in which the people voted directly instead of through 
representatives. 
•"Implicit. From the Latin in and plica, "fold." Therefore, 
infolded, implied, or taken for granted. 

** Tenets. From the Latin teneo, " hold." Therefore the beliefs 
they hold. 

** Coeval. Of the same age. 

"Dissent. That is dissent from authority without. 

"In a general way it may be said that the Catholic religion is 
based on the proposition that all men must believe the same 
things; the Church of England on the proposition that 
all Englishmen must believe the same things ; the Presby- 
terian on the proposition that the Elders shall decide what 
112 



Notes and Queries 

the members of the church are to believe; the Congre- 
gational on the proposition that each congregation shall 
settle its points of faith; the Unitarian on the proposition 
that each individual shall determine for himself. 

^Establishments. The established or state religions. 

^^ Latitude. Breadth. 

"^'What fact made the Northern colonies love liberty? The 
Southern? 

'^ ©i-ANTATioNS. Burke means the colonies, 

®^ Blackstone's Commentaries on the Common Law of England 
is the first textbook studied by law students. 

*^ General Gage. Where was General Gage at this time? 

** Capital Penal Constitutions. Chief penal laws. 

®° My Honorable and Learned Friend. Lord Thurlow, who in 
so doing violated one of the unwritten laws of the House 
of Commons. 

^Animadversion. Unfavorable comment. 

'^Emoluments. Rewards. 

^ Formidable from the Latin formido, ** fear." Hence, " to be 
feared." 

"* Happy. Wise and satisfactory. 

^""Litigious. Fond of going to law. 

^" " Studies develop into habits." 

^"^ Mercurial. Quick, like the God Mercury. 

^°^ To what animal does Burke here liken the Americans ? 

^"Ms this true to-day? 

^*^ Pounces. Qaws. 

^"'Circulation. Note how Burke compares circulation of power 
to the circulation of the blood. 

"'Which is further away from Constantinople — Algiers or 
Smyrna? 

"* Truck and Huckster. To beg for favor like a peddler. 

""^ Times. Opportimities. 

"* Observe that in this paragraph Burke sums up his exposition of 
the moral causes of the American spirit, and by so doing 
clears the way for what is to follow. In the next paragraph 
he proceeds to make clear the exact question which he 
wishes to discuss. Read the paragraph and then tell what 
that qtiestion is. 

^"Minority. Explain the meaning of the word. 

'" Untractable. Unmanageable. The history of the next seven 
years proves this sentence to have been prophetic. 

^" Emanation. From the Latin ex, " from," and mano, " to 
drip." 
8 113 



Notes and Queries 

"* The student will recall that the colony governments were based 
on charters issued by the king. 

"' Operose. From the Latin opus, " work," and osus. " full of." 
Hence difficult. 

"^ Humors. Passions. 

"' Analyze the metaphor in the words passage and channel. 

"^ Note the contrast between evident and tacit. 

"'Wholly Abrogated. May ii, 1774. The lower house of the 
Massachusetts legislature, or General Assembly, was not 
touched; but the upper house, or Council, which had pre- 
viously been elected by the Assembly, was to be appointed 
by the king. All executive and judicial appointments ceased 
to emanate from the people and no meetings could be held 
except by permission of the governor. 

^ Anarchy. From the Greek a, " not " and arche, " law." There- 
fore, a state of being without law. 

"* Tolerable. Endurable. 

"^ Burke in common with most clear thinkers believed that law 
and order, necessary as they are, rest upon acquired human 
habits, and that there is always a danger that primitive 
human instincts will break out and overthrow those habits. 

"* Does Burke favor granting independence to the colonies ? 

"* Radical. From the Latin radix, "root." It goes to the root 
of the matter. 

"' Monopolists. From the Greek monos, " single," and polis, 
" city." Hence, a monopolist is a man who owns all of any 
one thing in a city or a state. What is a "monarchy"? 
A " monotone " ? 

"* In what sense does Burke use the word " deserts " ? 

^ Tartars. Nomads or wanderers. 

^"Do you think the power of the colonies to resist British 
violence was very formidable? 

"® Exploded. The idea that tyrants can beggar their subjects into 
submission is compared to a shell that has blown up. 

"** Spoliatis Arma Supersunt. To the robbed arms remain. 

"^ Dragooning means governing by means of force. 

"' Chargeable. Expensive. 

*^ Enfranchisement. Freeing. 

"* Panegyrists. Pralsers. 

*" Auspicious. Promising. Burke is here ironical. Find some 
other passages where Burke has used irony. 

"^ In this paragraph we have a fine illustration of Burke's power 
of humor and skillful use of antithesis. 

"* Overt. Open. 

"4 



Notes and Queries 

"' Pedantic. From Greek pais = boy + ago — to lead. A peda- 
gogue is therefore a leader of boys, and pedantic means 
characteristic of a pedagogue, i.e., learned, over-refined, 
unpractical. 

^'^ Sir Edward Coke. Thou art the most vile and execrable 
traitor that ever lived. Sir Walter Raleigh. You speak 
indiscreetly, barbarously, and uncivilly. Sir Edward Coke. 
°^ I want words sufficient to express thy viperous treasons. 

^*** Explain the difference between privilege and immunity. A 
dictionary will help. 

"^NiCE. Sharply drawn. 

^^'Ex VI Termini. From the meaning of the word. 

"' Tantamount. Equal. 

*** In this sentence we have an instance of paradox or oxymoron. 
Oxy, " sharp," moron, " foolishness." Hence, an oxymoron 
is a statement which on its face is absurd but is really true. 
Burke has already used this device several times in this 
speech. Can you find where he has done it? 

"" Explain why Burke thinks that it is impossible to proceed 
against the American spirit as criminal. 

^^ Expedient. Wise. 

*" Addressed. Asked. 
/' *** Apprehension. Arrest. 
*7;:;*^What is the difference between judicial and juridical? 

^^''w'hat does Burke intend to say about the right of taxation? 

*" Policy. Wisdom or expediency. 

"' Polity. Government. 

"* Militate. Fight. 

*" Milton's " Paradise Lost," Book II, Lines 592-594. 

"°Note how Burke contrasts right and interest; miserable and 
happy ; may and ought ; lawyer and humanity. 

*"* American Financers means members of Parliament who ex- 
pect to get a revenue from the colonies. 

"' Trade Laws. The various acts whereby Parliament had tried 
to limit America's trade to England. They were so success- 
ful that about 90 per cent, of the tea consumed in the colo- 
nies was smuggled in from other countries. 

"* These questions are all what is known as rhetorical questions. 
What answer is expected? Would it not be more effective 
to put them in the form of declarative sentences ? 

"•Kings of Spain of the Austrian Family. Philip II (1556- 
1598), Philip III (1598-1621), Philip IV (1621-1665), and 
Charles II (1665-1700). Philip II was a tyrant and in 

"5 



Notes and Queries 

contrast to Burke's ideas of freedom. He married Bloody 
Mary, tried to frighten her sister Elizabeth, and lost the 
Spanish Armada. 

^'^ Oracle. A Greek oracle was a religious institution from which 
a priestess prophesied with infallible authority. 

"^Ireland was conquered by the English in 1169. 

"^ Magna Charta. The great charter was wrung from King 
John by the English Barons in 121 5. 

"^ To what is Magna Charta compared in this sentence ? 

^°^ Sir John Davis in 1612 published a book called Discoveries of 
the True Causes Why Ireland was never entirely subdued 
nor brought under Obedience of the Crown of England 
until the beginning of his Majesty's happy Reign. He was 
a poet of some note, and Attorney General for Ireland 
1606-1619. 

^^ Civility. Civilization. 

'''You Deposed Kings. "Fow" refers to the English Parlia- 
ment. The events referred to in this sentence are as 
follows: I. 1649, Charles I. deposed. 2, 1660. Charles II. 
restored. 3. 1668. James II. deposed and the succession 
altered. 4. The Usurper Cromwell ruled 1649-1658. The 
Stuart kings were restored in 1660. In i688 the Stuarts 
were finally deposed. 

^" Lucrative. Profitable. 

*^This description of Ireland, while it appears to be untrue, 
applies, it must be remembered, to the eighteenth century 
and not to the nineteenth. In the eighteenth century Ire- 
land had a Parliament of its own and a population of eight 
millions. In 1807 its Parliament was taken away and dur- 
ing the nineteenth century its population decreased to 
four milniions. 

"' Henry the Third — 1216-1272. Edward the First — 1272-1307. 

"° Commander-in-Chief. An allusion to our old friend General 
Gage. 

"' Explain the difference between composed and pacified ; incur- 
sion and invasion. 

"''Why is proclamation not as legal as statute? 

"^'^ Rid. Rode upon England like a living curse. 

^^* Poverty to Rapine. Note the oxymoron. 

"" Ill-husbandry. Poor economy. 

"* " As soon as that star of hope shone on those sailors, the angry 
surge ceased to beat upon the rocks; the winds fell, the 
clouds fled, and the threatening wave (because they (Par- 
liament) thus decreed) slept upon the deep." 
116 



Notes and Queries 



"' A County Palatine was a county ruled by the palace or by royal 
authority. Find Chester on the map. 

"^Richard the Second reigned 1377-1396. 

™ DiSHERSiONS means disinheritances. 

"" State the meaning of this address in your own words. 

^" Temperament. Modification or toning down. 

^^* " Like cures like " is a principle used by physicians in vaccina- 
tion and proposed by Burke for curing political evils. Has 
the principle any importance to-day? 

"^Charles the Second reigned 1660-1685. 

^** Find Durham on the map. 

"' Pale. Fence. 

^*' Equity. Justice. 

^*^ Virtually Represented. For example, if New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, and New York have representatives in Con- 
gress, while Vermont has none, Vermont would be vir- 
tually represented. 

^^ In this powerful paragraph Burke uses what is called an argu- 
ment a fortiori. That is, he argues from a stronger 
case to a weaker. 

"'A Great Flood. The Atlantic Ocean. 

"0 " Nature Has Opposed." Juvenal, Satire X, line 152. 

"^ Would such representation be possible to-day? 

^" How many representatives does Burke propose that the Colony 
of New York shall send to the British Parliament? 

"^ Plato (427-347 b.c), a Greek, wrote a book called the Republic, 
in which he pictured an ideal Commonwealth. Sir Thomas 
More (1478-1535), an Englishman, did the same thing in 
his "Utopia." Utopia comes from the Greek ou, "not," 
iopos, "place."' Hence it means "no place." Harring- 
ton's " Oceana " is a less famous and less interesting 
attempt of the same kind. 

^^ From Milton's Comus, lines 634-635. 

"^ In 1763 Mr. Grenville, one of the tools of George III, began the 
policy of taxation which resulted in the Declaration of 
Independence thirteen years later. 

*^ Imposition. Burke wishes America to be asked to grant taxes 
or refuse to grant them as America sees fit, but desires 
Parliament to promise specifically not to impose any further 
taxes on America. 

^®^ Corollary to. Dependent on or resulting from. 

"® Here we have a fine metaphor. Picture to yourselves a Roman 
temple supported by six pillars, each pillar representing one 
of Burke's resolutions. 

117 



Notes and Queries 



"" Fourteen. Why not thirteen ? 

** What does Burke mean by the description ? 

**^ Nearly Verbatim. From what act does Burke get his lar.^* 

guage ? 
"' " This is not my language, but what I was taught by Ofellu? 

who, though a plain farmer, was abundantly wise." 
'"'Burke compares the language of the Chester petition, whic 

he uses here, to a highly prized suit of ancient armor. 
**^ Ingenuous. Explain the difference between ingenuous and 

INGENIOUS. 

^Burke's genius was fundamentally conservative. 

*" Resolved Always to Be in the Right. Resolved never to cor 
fess that they have been wrong. 

'"Note the contrast between little and all; property and freedom. 

"'Capital. Chief. What is the chief outrage? 

'** Competence. Power. 

"* This' means that the English Government has accepted grant? 
of money from the colonial assemblies for over a century. 

'" So High. So long ago. 

'" Satiety. More than was required. 

"'Will put an end to lies by which the English people have bee 
stirred up to believe that Lord North's policy towards th 
Colonies has been right. 

"" State. Statement. 

"'How much revenue by grant did the Colonies furnish? Ho 
much by imposition? 

"' Exigencies. Needs. 

'" Drawback. Rebate. H America sent coffee to England a dul 
was charged ; if this coffee was then exported from Englan 
to France, for example, a rebate of this duty was alio we' 
so that its English importer would not be subject to 
double duty ; if, on the other hand, china was imported inl 
England and then sent to America two duties were impose .. 
Thus the Americans were discriminated against on both 
their exports and imports. Burke proposes to remove both 
of these vexatious arrangements. 

'" Clandestine Running of Goods. Smuggling. 

'"' Boston Port Bill. In March, 1774, in retaliation for the Bos- 
ton tea party, Parliament closed the Port of Boston. 

""Partial. Burke explains the meaning of the word partial ) 
the following sentences. 

'" Flagrant. Conspicuous. 

'" Exo^tionable. Objectionable. «^: , 

--■—'^ 118 ^ 



